Laughing Water, Board Member & Owner of Helena's Real Food Market & Deli
“Don’t look back—something might be gaining on you.” — Satchel Paige
Let’s ignore the great pitcher’s advice for a moment and look back with pride.
Fifty years ago, around the time we opened Helena’s Real Food Market, the future of natural foods looked bright. In the wake of monumental environmental reform - including the passing of the Clean Air and Water Act, publications like The Silent Spring, and a host of human potential and civil rights movements, it looked like change was finally on the horizon. In light of all this reform, people like us started natural food stores, where all of this could come together as part of a movement that made a difference in how we eat, how we live, and how we do business.
And you know what? It worked. At one Natural Products Expo in the 1980s, publishing giant T. George Harris announced that health was no longer the province of “health nuts” but had gone mainstream to the point where people felt left out if they weren’t on board. Not long after, the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act created a legal standard that accelerated the adoption of natural foods.
The sign above our door said, “Food for People, Not for Profit,” but clearly there was money to be made. The big fish ate the little fish and the whales jumped into the pond. Today, if you’re in the food business, you’re in the natural food business, and the largest retailer of organic foods is Walmart.
You could call that success. In a way, it is, and people like you and me played a big part in making it happen. But have we come far enough? Clearly not. Despite all of our progress something got left behind. Somebody took care of the profit, but taking care of people was left in our hands.
Diet-related chronic diseases are still the leading cause of death and disability. Our food system is still the leading threat to our environment. And the food economy perpetuates a host of social problems.
As independent natural food stores we have played a special role in the past, and we have a special role in the future. Now I’m not going to hang “Food for People AND Profit” above our door, but we can’t take care of people if we don’t take care of business. We—you and I—are not alone in struggling with that.
At our recent INFRA Board retreat, our facilitator from Korn-Ferry spoke about two ways to develop: perform and transform.
Performance is about improving the ways we already do business, and INFRA helps us do that in spades, from enabling us to seriously compete on prices to sharing best practices through our community and drawing from the expertise of INFRA’s topnotch team.
Transformation is something else. It’s not about just improving performance but redefining it. We can ask fundamental questions, like what business are we really in? What is our competitive landscape, and can we redefine it? Are there entirely new channels and partnerships we can explore?
As far as I can see, INFRA is the key to our success in the performance realm. But we live in times of explosive change with systems that don’t work, from food and environment to politics and social media. Explosive change can either blow us apart or rocket us to a better future.
Bracing for an uncertain future may be intimidating, but as INFRA Members we have an important advantage – each other. INFRA’s new vision statement is about stores like ours thriving at the center of every community, and throughout our history, we have not just been sources of food, but gathering spaces where people can sense that they are valued members of a caring community. As INFRA Members, we have the power to radically transform food systems, communities, and the future for the better. During uncertain times, we look ahead together.