Whole Health: Fine Tuned

JEFF WELLS, Photos by Kevin Clark

WHOLE HEALTH SHOPPING IS FILLED WITH CHOICES, from the mundane (where's the low-sodium soup?) to the philosophical (is there such a thing as humanely raised veal?). With each turn, in every aisle, wellness shoppers are confronted with labels, shelf tags and box panels promising them that making the right selections can lead to a healthier, more fulfilling life for themselves and their families.

At Market of Choice (from left): Scott Cook, sustainability; Gene Versteeg, produce; Scott Elwell, whole health; and Duran Taylor, natural/organic grocery.

Market of Choice has established itself as a leader in guiding those concerned shoppers to the healthful side of the aisle. The Eugene, Ore.-based retailer, which operates seven stores in the region, has all the features you'd expect to find in this eco-friendly, health-conscious part of the Northwest — local and artisan products, a robust selection of bulk items and supplements, sustainable store design.

What sets it apart, though, is the equal commitment it has to selling the unnatural — the full-fat, processed, conventional items that define the classic supermarket shopping trip.

“We want our customers to make the choice, because when they make the choice, then they're going to stick with it,” said Rick Wright, Market of Choice's president.

Such an attitude respects consumers. By offering the widest variety possible in a fully integrated, side-by-side comparison-shopping environment, the company lets its shoppers make the most complete, fully informed decisions about health and sustainability. And it's for this, for truly living up to its namesake, that Market of Choice deserves this year's SN Whole Health Enterprise Award.

MIXING IT UP

Integrating natural and conventional products hasn't always been the name of the game for Market of Choice. When Wright took the reins as president from his father in 1997, the company, which had been in business for just under 20 years, focused on traditional grocery items. That format changed shortly after Wright bought what would become the company's signature store that same year in southern Eugene, off Willamette Street, in a location that had previously been a supermarket. Customers came, grateful to have a neighborhood store again — but they wanted more.

“They were saying, ‘You're not selling the type of products we buy,’” said Wright.

This was a new era for retailing, especially for a town like Eugene, with a major university — the University of Oregon — and its fair share of affluent consumers. What they wanted was local, natural and organic products. To help meet the demand, Wright sent employees throughout the store with paper and pen in hand, and told them to ask people what items they should stock. A flood of requests came in, and Wright and his buyers scrambled to fulfill them. For produce, the store partnered with a local growers' cooperative.

“When we first started out, I put in about 20 organic items, and the customers were like, ‘Wow, we want more of this stuff!’” said Gene Versteeg, the chain's produce buyer. “It was probably just two or three months later that I had 150 organic items.”

In this way, the integration concept evolved as a natural reaction to market demand. It was a fine balance for Market of Choice to strike, however, since it didn't want to alienate the part of its customer base that preferred conventional items.

“We weren't creating separate departments in our store, like a natural foods department,” said Wright. “We were bringing groceries in, mixing organic items on the shelf right next to conventional items. We didn't really have a plan for what we were doing. We were just doing what the customer wanted, and it took off.”

Looked at in one way, today's Market of Choice is a seamless blending of two worlds. In the produce section, conventional products marked with a yellow shelf tag sit alongside organics with a green tag. In the grocery aisle, $8 Rao's all-natural spaghetti sauce sits just above the $2.69 bottles of Ragu. In the personal care department, $3 Speed Stick deodorant is merchandised on the same rack as the $10 Organic Grooming variety.

There are also many choices in between. And it's this wide variety, all mixed in together, that offers the best opportunity for shoppers to transition from one type of item to another. They can comparison shop in a low-pressure environment that doesn't predetermine their economic situation, tastes or ideals.

This availability and freedom to choose, according to Wright, is the most healthful benefit of all.

“We don't want to lecture people about health,” said Wright. “We just want to help them make better decisions.”

The challenges with integrating to this extent are many. There's a wide variety of vendors to deal with, all of them competing for shelf space. To keep the focus on what customers want, the company takes very few slotting fees, Wright said. Another challenge is appealing to consumers at either end of the spectrum — the organic purists who don't want to go searching for the products they want, and conventional shoppers put off by more expensive natural products.

But the strategy, properly executed, rewards the retailer with higher sales and strong customer loyalty. Many shoppers, for instance, used to purchase over-the-counter cold remedies for their children from Market of Choice's whole health department. When the Food and Drug Administration moved these products behind the counter, many customers simply transitioned to the natural and homeopathic items found in the same section.

“The natural side has really reacted to that and come out with a lot of items for kids,” said Scott Elwell, Market of Choice's whole health buyer. “They're as good if not better than a lot of conventional options.”

KEEPING IT LOCAL

Providing healthy choices these days also means offering a range of items produced by nearby farmers and manufacturers. That's why Market of Choice also includes a large selection of local and seasonal products, from fresh market favorites like Lochmead Farms milk from nearby Junction City, to Painted Hills beef raised just over 100 miles to the northeast in Fossil. In the grocery department, artisan selections like Sweet Home Farm granola, made right in Eugene, are stocked alongside national brands.

“There aren't many local artisan manufacturers around here that we don't carry,” said Wright.

A staffed cheese department holds a wide selection of local and artisan choices, as well as oils and imported items.

At the front of the produce section, a signboard displays rows of tags indicating which items are grown locally. On a recent Friday morning, the list included spinach, kale, basil, mushrooms, chard, watermelon, zucchini and squash, among others. Versteeg said he does business with hundreds of local growers, many of whom will pick and deliver their crops on the same day, directly to individual stores.

Working with this many vendors can be a headache. It's hard to coordinate so many schedules, Versteeg said, and the crop quality and output are difficult to predict.

“Maybe the green bean guy can only come up with three cases and you need 10,” he explained.

And sometimes there can be too much of a certain crop, like earlier this year when Versteeg had to turn away blueberry growers, many of whom started growing in response to a shortage the previous year.

But the payoff is unparalleled freshness that will keep customers coming back. Versteeg offered this example of a typical corn delivery:

“The grower calls up the produce manager early, at 6 o'clock in the morning, and asks, ‘How much do you want today?’ And the manager might say 10 cases. The grower sends those pickers out, picks 10 cases of corn, then drives it out here and it's on the shelf by 10 in the morning after being in the field three hours earlier. We'll put that corn on the shelf, and it's still warm from the sun shining on it.”

It doesn't hurt, of course, that Market of Choice operates in a hot spot for local products. There's high demand from consumers in the region, and the weather and artisan-friendly environment help growers and manufacturers succeed more easily than they might in other parts of the country. Brands like Kettle chips, made in nearby Salem, and Nancy's Yogurt, from Eugene, have gone on to achieve nationwide distribution.

“This is a great area for little cottage industries to start up,” said Duran Taylor, Market of Choice's natural and organic grocery buyer. “If we like it here, people are going to like it in a lot of other places too.”

But even with the luxury of high demand, the company still has to work hard to coordinate all the moving parts and give customers what they want. In addition, Wright said, there's the matter of defining local, of constantly measuring the company's mission to source sustainably and support the community.

“We even struggle with considering whether something grown in Portland” — just over 100 miles away — “should be considered local,” said Wright.

THE RIGHT DESIGN

Much of Market of Choice's health and wellness strategy is on display for customers, from the bulk bins to the selection of supplements and natural remedies in the whole health department. But there's also a lot going on behind the scenes. Take, for instance, the company's composting and recycling initiatives it recently undertook for some of its produce and kitchen prep departments. Different-colored bins help employees separate out waste — green containers for compostables, blue for recyclables and black for everything else — with pictures posted around each department to help workers figure out what goes where.

The result: Less material going to the landfill, and more sustainable habits for employees.

“There needs to be that reflex where workers know which product goes in which container,” said Scott Cook, Market of Choice's sustainability coordinator.

On the roof of the 43,000-square-foot Willamette store in south Eugene, an extensive solar panel setup generates a large amount of energy that's sold to the power company and distributed through the grid.

“A year after we originally put up those solar panels, we came back and ended up tripling the size of it,” said Wright. “Whatever space up there that could have solar panels now has it.”

Indeed, revisiting and retrofitting different parts of the store with sustainability in mind is part of the job for Market of Choice. Along with expanding the solar panel display on its Willamette store, the company has gone back and installed LED lights in its freezers and replaced its door heaters with a model that detects and administers just the right amount of heat — about 28% of the previous output, according to Wright.

Features like this are going to be the foundation for Market of Choice's next store, opening in Corvallis in just over a year. Refrigeration units there will run off ethylene glycol, an organic compound that's recognized as being more eco-friendly than Freon. Like the Willamette store, the new location will also feature plenty of windows and skylights to provide natural light, along with special sensors on the store's fluorescents that detect light levels and turn off and on accordingly.

Additionally, Market of Choice strives to build its stores using as much recycled material as possible.

“If the architecture speaks towards well-thought-out, well-used material, then people will see the thought that goes into that,” said Wright.

And truly, Market of Choice customers have come to understand the importance of sustainability. When the company phased out plastic bags more than a year ago, people adjusted. Many of them also understand the retailer's mission to use as much recyclable and biodegradable packaging as possible — and some of them have pushed for even more options.

Those looking for more can be assured that Market of Choice isn't about to rest on its laurels. Cook, for one, said he'd like to provide a recycling education program that teaches customers about different types of recyclable and biodegradable packaging, then provide proper disposal containers for everything in stores. There are other ideas, other choices, and really, anything's possible.

“I'd like to see us help the industry set a standard,” he said.

Surviving the Downturn

As any supermarket buyer will attest, it's been a tough year. The buyers at Market of Choice agree, but say the recession has had less of an impact than they thought it would.

“We had to buy better,” said Duran Taylor, the company's natural and organic grocery buyer. “We just flat out had to look for better deals so we could give the customers a good price and push those items.”

The company's integrated format helped keep its customers in-store, rather than trading out altogether. Frozen and prepared-food items were popular, according to Taylor, with people opting to eat out less. Customers are also taking more preventive health measures. That's been an opportunity for the whole health department, with its wide range of natural, homeopathic and conventional options, to step up.

“You go to your doctor's office, it's $100 just to walk in the door,” said Scott Elwell, the company's whole health buyer. “A lot of people are now coming to us to get suggestions about what to do for a cold or to ward off the flu.”
— Jeff Wells

Time for a Checkup

With health care costs as high as ever, consumers and employers are both on the lookout for quality preventive care. Supermarket operators across the country have stepped up to offer in-store clinics, and now Market of Choice can add its name to the list. In November, the Eugene, Ore.-based retailer will open The Checkup Center, located at the front end of its Willamette store in south Eugene. Right now the space is boarded up, but soon it'll be a full-service stop for everything from flu shots to blood work-ups and bone-density tests. There'll be a nurse practitioner on hand, as well as nutritionists rotating in from the local hospital, which has partnered with Market of Choice on the new clinic.

“Not only does it provide a lot of these low-cost services to our customers, but I'm going to be able to offer them to my employees,” said Rick Wright, president of the seven-store chain. “Everybody's talking about health care costs, and it's not any different for us.”
— Jeff Wells

AT A GLANCE

MARKET OF CHOICE

Headquarters: Eugene, Ore.

Year founded: 1978

Number of stores: 7

Number of employees: 700

Largest store: 43,000 sq. ft.

Smallest store: 10,000 sq. ft.

Next store opening in: Corvallis, Ore.