GM Newsletter - June 2026
from the General Manager, Seth Naumann
Cooperation Among Cooperatives
Seth (right) with Amy Fields, Jeanie Wells and Rita York Hennecke - The Merc Co+ops General Managers since 1993 at the NCG Spring Meeting.
This month, our co-op was provided with the tremendous opportunity of having fellow cooperative leadership peers from all over the country visit our co-op and provide feedback about things like merchandising, operations, and structure. Not only was this an extremely helpful and supportive activity, but it was coordinated and provided free of charge to us based on our business relationship with National Co+op Grocers (NCG), the co-op of co-ops.
Our distinguished crew of guests consisted of two NCG leaders and three General Managers from co-ops of varying sizes and volumes. The activity began with visits to local competition to assess the competitive strengths and opportunities of our co-op. Next, our visitors interviewed each member of our leadership team individually to gain understanding of our organizational structure and knowledge of the current state of each department. They walked our sales floor and backrooms throughout the two-day visit to gauge conditions at various times of the day and efficiencies on each shift.
As I waited with bated breath for their final presentation of findings to our leadership team, I was anxious that they would share that we had a ton of work still to do or that we weren’t nearly as good as we might believe we are. This was not the case whatsoever. The entire team was extremely complimentary and actually asked us for our recipes and SOPs for programs that they wanted to take back to their co-ops! Any constructive criticism they did provide regarded things that we were already aware of or already had in the pipeline. It was very validating to have industry experts provide such positive feedback and to hear that “we struggled to find anything to critique.” I take so much pride in the work that this team does, and it made my heart full to hear that others share the same sentiments.
We ended the last day of the audit with a phenomenal dinner at Lawrence Beer Co., joined by all our guests and leadership team. After all, what is a cooperative dinner without local fare? There were so many great conversations and stories shared at dinner, and it was inspiring to see everyone talking shop because they are passionate about the work that we do and not because they were required to.
The constructive feedback that we did receive is already being implemented, and I am sure that it will prove to make us better operators, merchandisers, and leaders. I am also greatly looking forward to September of this year when I get to take part in an NCG peer review of Marquette Food Co-op in Marquette, MI, with a different set of GMs from all over the country. What an exciting opportunity to practice cooperative principle number 6 – “cooperation among cooperatives.”
Our co-op peers came from the Sioux Falls Co+op in South Dakota, People’s Co-op in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Valley Natural Foods in Minnesota (locations pictured left to right).
Employees of the Month
Congratulations to Keastra, Zack, and Nia - our recent Employee of the Month recipients!