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organic vegan to providing non-judg- mental guidance to a less-seasoned, more flexible inductee testing the waters of healthier food alternatives. “A lot of folks are misguided they can’t afford to eat well. Sprouts is a contradiction to that,” he says.
“Produce is our signature department, and we’re striving to bring value to our customers every day, but especially in produce because we understand how important that is to making healthy choices and beginning that journey toward eating better,” say Sanders, pointing to a popular
Sprouts saying, “Every meal is a choice, and healthy living is a journey.”
Since Sprouts takes an untraditional grocery path, and many of its product offerings may be unfamiliar to people, training and education become paramount to its operations, according to Sanders, who stresses the importance of having educated team members on the sales floor to help in purchasing decisions.
In more colloquial terms, “Doing things the Sprouts way,” is a phrase echoed from numerous employees throughout the store.
Last year, Sprouts devoted more than a half-million hours of formalized training for its team members. But Sprouts isn’t looking to hire specialists particularly. “Actually, what we’re looking for are great personalities. And we train on the skills,” says Sanders, adding, “We place an enormous focus on equipping our team members for success.”
“Employees may have worked in other retail stores, but because our model is so different, we really put an emphasis on new team member training, especially in new markets that might not be familiar with our stores, and also the level of engagement in the store, which is a little more in-depth than a conventional grocery store,” says Pang.
To that end, Sprouts brings in regional produce trainers, produce managers and other specialists from across the chain to guarantee new stores hit the ground running, and maintain the momentum long after. Produce suppliers also get involved.
Melissa’s World Produce, based in Vernon, CA, and a Sprouts partner, had a lively presence at the Ellicott City, MD grand opening, cooking up samples of spicy edamame and interacting with new customers. “This is a new market for Sprouts and an important store for them and we want to give them as much support as we can,” says Dale Roberts, regional sales manager for Melissa’s in San Diego.
“We’ve been partnering with Sprouts for around five years, pioneering some proj- ects together where we’re really in lock step, not only in product and merchan- dising but in educating consumers,” says Matt Bergholz, Melissa’s business manager out of Phoenix, where Sprouts is headquartered. “We love to do grand openings but we have teams come to the stores all the time,” says Bergholz, adding, “Sprouts is produce-centric and unique. It’s a real community here. You find a lot of passion with the associates, from the store managers to the checkout clerks.”
GREEN LEADERS
“Each one of our stores has a green leader, a dual role the assistant store manager plays to champion sustainability initiatives,” says Romero. Specific sustain- ability responsibilities are embedded within the job position, including tracking and reporting progress to corporate, and advancing new procedures and processes to their teams at the store level, according
4-SPROUTS / MAY 2018 / PRODUCE BUSINESS