A Kroger in a neighboring county allowed a local food pantry to run a food drive from their parking lot. What they did was offer a list of suggested foods and supplies to shoppers as they entered the store, then when people came out, they could just donate any items they chose to buy from the list. It was very simple, no muss, no fuss, not pushy at all, and you could tell it was working because nearly all of the items on the list were sold out when we got there that morning.
So, we thought maybe we could do the same thing at the Kroger here in the county where I live. Our food pantry has been completely hammered with requests. Most of the county is eligible for assistance from the pantry, their donations are drying up, the demand is increasing, and it’s getting bad. All of the pantry volunteers were really excited at the idea, but they warned me about the new management.
I just got off the phone with Kroger. “No,” they said. “We already do enough.”
I was told ahead of time this store wouldn’t allow it. I was warned going in that they wouldn’t help, that they have said in the past that any food someone gets from a food pantry is food that person didn’t buy from Kroger.
But dammit, this food would ALL have been from Kroger! This was going to be a sales pitch for your store, you stupid people! You were going to sell peanut butter and tuna helper to people who wouldn’t have bought that extra jar or extra box!
Are Krogers independently owned? Could the manager at Kroger 1 call the manager at Kroger 2 and tell him/her that it was a good idea? Did Kroger 1 get good publicity from it that could be shown to the manager at Kroger 2? (Free “advertising” often sets the hook.)
Whoa. Major failure to catch a clue, there, Kroger! Here, I’ll give you one of these – free, all donated-like. :smack: Feel free to imitate and repeat as necessary.
This story actually reminds me of a radio drama I heard years ago, about a small-town store like this, co-owned by a brother and sister, with the brother being the acting manager, and the sister a silent partner.
The brother set up a ‘donation bin’ for the local food bank, and encouraged shoppers to ‘pick up something for the needy’ and drop it in the bin - and he was getting all kinds of good publicity for it and being treated as a humanitarian, like people couldn’t realize he was making money off the deal, not giving anything of his own to charity.
The sister, meanwhile, quietly donated from her share of the store’s profits directly to the food bank, and also, IIRC, put them in touch directly with the wholesalers that the store bought from, so that they could get more food with her money by not having to pay a retailer markup.
There might have been a mystery mixed up in there too, but I can’t remember what it was.
This. Abso-frickin-lutely do this. If your county’s impovershed, then the local media should lap the story up like there’s no tomorrow.
If you want to be nice (all Kroger’s are corporate owned, BTW), call the regional manager first and explain to him/her the situation and that you’ll be talking to the media about it as you think that its really distasteful that Kroger would refuse to agree to do something which would improve their sales and aid the poor without costing them a cent.
Frankly, I tend to avoid the local Kroger’s as in recent years they’ve turned into really grubby places with the faint scent of garbage just past its prime filling sections of the store.
We’ve already bought and donated a Fund a Feast. The interesting thing is that I haven’t seen any publicity or ads (outside of the web page and signs in the stores) announcing the programs – they are doing it without fanfare.
No, don’t do this. Not yet anyway. What happened is that you ran into one of life’s little tiny roadblocks that are set up to weed out the people who don’t really want something. Whoever you talked to was probably busy, didn’t feel like hearing you out at that particular moment, thought it was a sales call, etc etc etc. What you need to do is go up there and meet with her (or, better, her boss) in person, with a nice BIG smile on your face, and explain how beneficial this will be to them and oh yeah it’ll help some needy people out too. Badda-bing, you’re done. No need to start by ratting them out to a news crew who might not care anyway.
That is just stupid on the part of the Kroger manager.
In West Hollywood, almost every weekend for several years, they had people with small lists of items needed at the local AIDS Hospice - toothpaste, mouthwash, soaps, some food items…and people gladly threw in a few items in their shopping cart as they checked out and then donated them to the people out front.
It was a win-win…grocery store sold more, the hospice got what they needed and, most importantly, I would often hear people say “at least I know what I am buying is going directly to the source!” You wouldn’t believe how quickly the volunteers were scratching items off their list, as they had reached their goal!
Perhaps the Kroger manager really didn’t understand? I cannot imagine any other reason he/she would not want to see sales uptick, even a bit. I mean, if I buy 8 cans of soup instead of four, and then donate four cans on the way out, Krogers still sold double the amount and made a profit!
Someone in the grocery store hasn’t thought this out very well.
No success with Kroger. Even more frustrating is I approached the only other store of any size in the county and they said they were already doing a food drive for a whole week in December for the food bank. I was really surprised that no one at the food bank had mentioned it to me and asked them what was what. Everyone was very confused.
It turns out one of the neighboring counties is running a large food drive for their county and they got to this local store before I did.
So not only are we not able to run our food drive, but what food is gathered in this county is being taken out of the county.
When a store gives you grief you try something different, and leave the store alone. That is shitty of the other county to do that in your county when you need it there. I bet the donators don’t realize it’s not helping the people in your county. You can still give out lists and have collection points. The grocery just makes it more convenient.
