From 1 Store to 10 Locations: Fresh Foods' Inspiring Rural Grocery Success Story | Live From SpartanNash

Hello, everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazenga.

And we are coming to you live once again from the Symbian omnitalk podcast studio at the Spartan Ash Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And now, Ann joining us.

I'm pleased to introduce our next guest.

We have Ben and Kerry Dishman, the founders of Fresh Foods.

Thank you both for joining us.

Glad to be here.

It's great to have you, Kerri.

First question would be, tell us a little bit about how Fresh Foods got started, where Fresh Foods footprint is.

Give us the lay of the land to start.

Okay.

There's a lot of land to cover, so I hope you're ready.

I'm ready.

Okay, here we go.

So when Ben and I were first married, he.

I actually found out that he worked at the grocery store when we were dating.

Okay.

And I would go to the store to go pick up things to kind of stalk him as he was a stalker.

So that's really where it began.

Stocker.

I stalked the stalker because, I mean, look, he's so cute.

So anyways, let me make him red.

But anyways, we were married in 1997, had two kids.

He was working for Nash Finch at the time and their son Mart stores after they purchased 6th street in North Platte, Nebraska.

And then from there, he was transferred to Ogallala, Nebraska, and to run that Sun Mart there.

It was Ben's dream.

I found out when we were living in Ogallala to always own his own grocery store.

Really?

Yeah.

When he was 16, he was a carryout boy, and he said, I think I want to own my own store.

Wow.

And I had read this book called Dream Givers, and it shows that our dreams are symbolized by a feather.

And so for Christmas, I gave him a feather, and I said, we're gonna do whatever it takes to get you your own grocery store.

Wow.

What a partner together.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And that was, I believe, around 2009.

It might have been a little bit earlier than that.

And we kept working on it, getting debt free.

And then we heard this shows our age.

A fax came across his office in the Oglala store, and it says, buy a grocery store in gearing for $1.

And so that's where we got familiar with Gearing.

And we went and looked at the store, loaded up our babies.

They were in car seats, toured the store.

Too big of a project.

We saw these dead birds laying on the floor and all this.

We're like, oh, man, we can't do this.

Whoa.

So we went back home.

He worked for at Oglala, and then we worked some more on this.

Someone said, hey, you want a partner?

Gary needs a store.

So Ben's like, yeah, sure, let's do this.

Did all the things together.

That deal fell through, so no store.

A couple years later, somebody gave us a random cold call and said, we want to open a store in Gearing.

And it was a local person from Gearing.

And Ben's like, I'm not running a store.

I want to own a store.

So he then talked to this gentleman.

The gentleman says, well, we don't want to own a grocery store.

We just want to own the business.

The building.

Excuse me.

Yes.

So they wanted to own the building.

Ben wanted to own the business.

So we partnered up with this local person in the community.

And in 2012, through all of that, we opened our door.

Fresh Foods came up with a name.

Fresh Foods.

Because we did not know a single soul in Gearing, so knowing to name it after Ben or Dishman's wouldn't make sense.

But so we wanted to name it for what we wanted our store to stand for.

We wanted it to be fresh, and we wanted to sell food.

So in 2012, began fresh foods.

Wow.

And now we're 10 locations in three states later.

Whoa.

Wow.

That's crazy.

So, Ben, what made you think that Gearing was the place to start?

Why did you think, like, you know what?

I can make this work in Gearing?

Well, I really didn't know.

Several times, it sounds like to bet on yourself.

You know what?

We really try to do what God wants us to do.

We felt like God was pushing us to Gearing, and so, you know, through a chain of events, we feel like he led us there.

And, you know, Gearing never.

They did not have a grocery store, so it had closed down, and they sat empty for seven years.

Whoa.

So no grocery store in a town of 8,000 people for seven years.

And, you know, the market studies came back fairly decent, but we just knew that we could make a grocery store in Gearing work.

Yeah.

And so that's what we did.

We just went by faith, and, you know, it worked out really well.

We hit a home run in Gearing.

We have great customers there.

The town, the community, was really eager for a store, and so that's what we did.

Wow.

What do you both do to kind of make sure that Fresh Foods is set apart from some of the other grocery stores?

I have no doubt there's probably a larger chain in the area nearby.

Why do the people in the community go to Fresh Foods?

Carrie?

There's multiple reasons.

Yeah.

And when we first opened the store, one of the most beautiful things that we saw was the community coming together.

For them to have a place and to be a community, everybody has to eat.

And it was so fun for this neighbor to see that neighbor and someone to see their grandkids and to share stories as they would talk across their grocery carts.

So that's something that, you know, we want to have a home feeling.

We keep our stores really clean so it's comfortable where people shop.

We also try to stay top on trends, which makes it fun.

Like, what little treasure are you going to find at Fresh Foods?

Right.

So just a fun shopping experience.

Because sometimes when you think, oh, I gotta go get groceries, but for them to know that, oh, I get to go get groceries, maybe I'll go see someone or I'll go find a good deal.

And we like to be able to help our community just by providing food in what was a food barren area.

And like, one of our things right now, someone had asked us here how we're involved with our community.

We're part of that backpack ministries program that feeds our kids at the schools, and they provide thousands and thousands of meals every weekend to the students in the Gearing and the Scotts Bluff schools.

So we are so excited to be a vital part of that and to work with that team of volunteers.

Yeah.

Wow.

So.

So, Kerry, do you find that people are more loyal to you because, like, I mean, the options, right.

The other options are like, I'm thinking like Walmart tractor supply menards.

Like, do you find that people are loyal to you because of what you do and the approach that you both take?

There are people where there's certain things that are important to them and what's important to us is important to them where we find similar values.

So we offer them great prices.

We can't ever get as cheap as Walmart because, I mean, let's face it, they get better prices than we do.

They're Walmart.

But they know at the end of the day when something happens in the community, we'll be there for them.

And then also we offer a really safe place for parents to send their kids to go work and get a work experience.

I have some friends and they said, we like our kids to work for you because we know they're gonna get a second mom, gonna get their work mom.

And you know, the other day I said to one other girl, she's like, well, my Time's up.

And I said, is your job done?

She goes, what do you mean?

I said, I understand your time's up, but are you done with your job?

She's like, no, you finish your job and then you can go.

So, yeah, everybody needs a second mom.

It's just raising a kid.

Can you open one in our neighborhood?

Because Chris and I could use somebody to give our kids a second parent.

Without a doubt, they don't always listen to their mom and dad in their teenage years.

But if you have someone else that can speak truth and invest in them and say, listen, you have great potential, but you gotta work for.

Right, Right.

Well, Ben, I'm curious what kind of has changed since you opened the business?

Carrie talked about trends changing, but what have you noticed is different about running the business now from when you opened it back in 2012?

Oh, wow.

There's a lot of differences whether it's who the employees are.

Okay.

You know, the.

The quality of the employee.

You know, it's harder to find that good employee that's gonna come in and give it their best.

Yeah.

But we think we have a lot of good employees in our locations.

Another big change is probably technology and how that's impacted the grocery business.

You know, whether it's ESLs or self checkouts.

Those are.

Those are a couple of the biggest changes that we've seen.

And obviously, Covid was a big interruption and everything, so, you know, we learned a lot.

You know, and I think we're all just learning how to do business again after Covid, you know, in the warehouses.

But I don't know.

The cost of.

The cost of goods has gone up a lot.

Right, Right.

So there's just a lot of challenges, but we wouldn't trade it for the world.

I mean, we're having a great time, and we're trying to adapt, too.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Yeah.

I'm curious.

We were joking before we got started, before we hit record, that I used to run the Target store in the neighboring Scottsbluff.

And I can remember that hiring was always one of the more difficult things for that location.

You know, you'd find the people, and typically they would stay with you for a while.

But finding good, qualified people is always tough.

What have you found that helps you in that regard, Carrie?

So part of the.

As I mentioned before is we have friends who have kids, and they want to have their kids come work for us, which is such a blessing.

We're very flexible.

We love high school kids.

And so I know a lot of people Think kids don't do a good job working, but the thing is to train them and just really get them ready for their future and see them as an investment not only to the short time they're with us, but in the community.

Because if they have an attachment to fresh foods, when they go back to college and they're done with their studies there, we want them to come back to our community.

We don't want them to stay in the city, we want them to come back to the rural areas and then have that familiarity of the family environment in our locations, our stores, that they're not a number.

We care about them, what they're doing, where they're at, if they've got married, have kids, you know, that's definitely something you don't get from the.

Excuse me, from the big box stores.

No, it's a great point.

And that's the approach, I take it, that you're taking not just in gearing, but across all nine of the stores that you run as well.

Is that right?

Yeah.

We were having a meeting with our managers earlier today and it was just really neat as we were talking with them about how even some of them have their own kids working in the store.

Yeah.

I grew up, my parents are ranchers and my mom and dad work together.

And I always wanted to have a family business where we could work together.

And so to see that even within our team of having their families working together, it's just.

It's awesome.

Well, Ben, I'm curious.

You know, we talked about some things that are changing.

How.

How would you say you're investing in technology?

And where you mentioned a couple things, ESL is being one of them.

Going into digital couponing to avoid the cost of printing.

What other things are really top of mind for you as you think about what can help you invest in.

In the business as we go forward?

When it comes to technology.

I would say the biggest impact that we've noticed is through electronic shelf life.

Okay.

So that's.

That's where we seem to get the biggest bang for our buck.

We do have self checkouts in some of our stores, but we have an actual checker there too.

Yeah, so it's.

We kind of have a mixture in some of our stores.

We.

And there's newer technology that's always coming out.

I know some of your bigger boxes are going with scan and go technology, things like that.

But we found that if we're not investing in new technology, that will probably be out of business.

And you're the tech guy from what I heard from the missus here.

Well, that's nice of her to say that.

I don't know how techy I am.

The great thing about tech with the ESLs is if we need to make a correction, it can be done instantly so that, you know, that way we get our pricing correct for our consumers and we don't have to wait until someone goes to the system, writes the tag, walks it to the shelf, and it's more green, more friendly.

We're not throwing tags away every week, so We've got our ESLs going on.

Makes for happier employees, too.

They don't have to change those out all the time.

Well, and it's another way, too, that we don't have to have as many employees because we're working smarter, not harder.

Right.

You get more productivity out of it, too.

Well, thank you both.

Thanks both of you for joining us.

Is this your first time at the conference?

I'm guessing not.

You probably both have been here before, right?

Oh, we've been here a couple of other times.

Yes, a couple of other times.

Nice, nice, nice.

Well, thank you, Ben and Carrie.

Thank you for joining us today.

We'll be back with one more interview coming your way later this afternoon.

And until then, Anne, be careful out there.