A season to lead with gratitude

On the surface, finding anything to be thankful for in 2020 might seem like a stretch.

Unprecedented health, political and economic concerns have left many of us hanging on for dear life, hoping that 2021 will be better for all of us. Yet, in the middle of the storm, there is still room for gratitude. There is still cause for thanksgiving.

As integral members of the retail produce world, independent produce managers interact with many people and opportunities for which they can be grateful. Across the country, the pandemic has reminded us just how important those people and moments are, and the turbulence of 2020 has given rise to expressions of gratitude for all we used to take for granted.

Produce managers are leaders within their departments and their stores; they should also lead the way when it comes to expressions of thanksgiving and gratitude.

There is much to be thankful for. Customers, braving exposure to a contagious virus, continued to walk the aisles of independents. Sure, there were masks, sometimes hiding apprehensive, unsettled faces. There were arrows on the floor and plexiglass at the checkout.

Yet, despite all of this, customers still continued to show up and support their local supermarket. Many offered thanks in recognition of sacrifices that store personnel were making. Each customer has been a blessing and deserves genuine, heartfelt thanks.

Independents were, for the most part, able to offer numerous varieties and stocked shelves to their customers – and for that, wholesalers and suppliers have earned the appreciation of every independent produce manager. Working through challenging changes in the workplace, produce distributors have kept the trucks rolling to ensure that when customers did brave the environment to shop, they could fill their baskets.

In fact, the entire supply chain – everyone from farm to table – worked together to find unique and unprecedented workarounds to ensure that in the midst of a pandemic, American families were fed. For all of them, we should give thanks.

I often refer to produce departments as theaters, where every day productions are staged to entertain and engage produce shoppers. Certainly, the stars of these fresh productions are the customers and the produce managers. We all know, however, that no production can be successful without the many stagehands and production assistants behind the scenes. So it is within a retail store.

Thanksgiving is the time to recognize those people behind the mops and buckets and the spray bottles of sanitizer. Each truck driver that backs up the dock, remembering his or her mask and unloading pallets of fruits and vegetables in the middle of a pandemic, deserves our appreciation. Every part-timer who comes to work – sometimes leaving a nervous family behind – is certainly worthy of our gratitude.

To reach back to the theater metaphor, everyone has a story. Every customer, every cashier, every truck driver. Each part-time produce clerk has a story, as does every salesperson and frozen food clerk. Some of these stories are simple narratives, while others are full-blown Shakespearean dramas.

Each puts aside their own lives, their own stories, to come to work during a pandemic to fulfill an obligation to their organization or to their family. All deserve recognition, appreciation and gratitude for the bravery and the courage they show each time they walk through the front door of a supermarket – the courage to face a pandemic in the middle of their own stories.

In the midst of a troubling or turbulent moment, Americans have demonstrated the gratitude that knits us together as one. We have seen appreciation demonstrated across the landscape of America. Signs at the end of driveways proclaim heartfelt thanks to essential workers, which include our supermarket personnel.

Social media is ripe with stories about “little acts of kindness” that have occurred each and every day in grocery stores everywhere.

Produce managers are the standard-bearers for their stores. They are charged with setting a tone of quality, a sense of fresh and an air of excitement. They are true leaders in their stores, responsible for a significant amount of growth and margin in today’s supermarkets.

Perhaps, as we begin the countdown to the Thanksgiving holiday, produce managers can take the lead in becoming advocates for a grateful appreciation of all that surrounds us.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I will leave you with this quote from Cicero, the Roman statesman: “Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.”

Steve Patt is a part of the leadership team for Tourtellot and Co. He has worked for or with independent grocers for nearly 50 years.