Charlestown Whole Foods Manager Talks Business

The Charlestown Neighborhood Council last week met the woman who will be managing the community's new Whole Foods Market, Store Team Leader Kim Hall. Hall, a Needham resident who has been with the company for about 13 years, talked about some of the special features the new grocery store would offer and expressed her excitement about getting to know Charlestown.

Hall didn't have an exact answer for the council's biggest question: When will the new store open? But another Whole Foods representative present at the meeting said the typical renovation process takes about nine months and that construction got underway at the Bunker Hill Plaza site about one month ago—which would put the opening around November, about one year after the former Johnny's Foodmaster closed.

The morning after her visit to the CNC, Hall chatted in more detail with Charlestown Patch about her job, the new store and Whole Foods' role in the community.

How long have you been with Whole Foods? I’ve been with Whole Foods for about 13 years. I started off as a team member. I’ve been a store team leader for eight years. As an ASTL [Associate Store Team Leader] I opened two locations in Massachusetts, and as a store team leader I went down and did the Wild Oats conversion in Connecticut and then opened the Glastonbury Whole Foods in Connecticut. Then right before Charlestown I’ve been working in the Woburn Whole Foods. My background is primarily in bakery. Really, I just absolutely fell in love with the company. I’m one of those lucky people who’s in love with what they do.

What do you like best about working for Whole Foods? The culture is definitely what I enjoy most. The leadership style and the culture that we get to reflect and upkeep at Whole Foods Market really fits well with me and is in line with my ethics and what I believe in. My favorite part of my job is the leader that I’m allowed to be at Whole Foods. I’m really passionate about the food as well, and I’m kind of a geek when it comes to retailing—I love retailing and merchandising. But my real passion lies with the team members, with the customers and our community, and how much involvement we get to have with all of those components to business.

What are some of the special features the Charlestown Whole Foods will offer? We’re going to have the Scratch Bakery; we’re going to be doing a lot of in-house cakes. We’ll have a coffee bar, definitely a smoothie bar. We’re going to have cheeses from around the world, which is very exciting. Our specialty department is going to be amazing. We’ll have a pretty significant Whole Body department, which is a health and beauty department with supplements. There will be a fresh meat and seafood counter. There will be a prepared foods department, which will have service foods and a chef’s case, freshly cooked in-house products, as well as a salad bar, hot bar and sushi. There will be a flower department. There’s going to be a small café area with seating. It’s pretty similar to the same kind of venues that a lot of our Whole Foods have, like the Charles River location.

What would you say to residents who are concerned about Whole Foods being much more expensive than the old Johnny's Foodmaster? I think it’s really about brand awareness. We are really competitive with our 365 Everyday Value private label line. And we have so many amazing value programs that go out. We have our Madness Sale, our Weekly Buyer, our Whole Deals packet, as well as other packets that are meals for four under $15. At any point there are about 1,500 sale items within the store. So really how we’re going to be addressing [those concerns] is just making sure people are aware of our product lines, that we’re getting out into the community with our products and that we’re available for our customers who are concerned about this, to walk them through our store and introduce them to what we're doing and our price points. We are actually very competitive within the marketplace.

What are some community outreach programs you hope to bring to Charlestown? There are so many different ways that we can reach out into the community, and our goal is to get the community involved with what we’re doing from the beginning. We have already worked with Harvest on Vine; we donated 300 turkeys last Thanksgiving. We donated $400 worth of Christmas gifts to the Kennedy Center already. We have provided healthy snack donations for the Friends of the Navy Yard as well as the Harvard-Kent School.

We also have four 5 percent days at Whole Foods Market—four times a year, 5 percent of our sales for that day are donated to a nonprofit organization within the community. We also have register coupons where our customers can donate whatever type of donation they want to specific organizations. In Woburn we've really partnered with the community, and it's not only in the form of donations but it’s also in the form of healthy eating education.

Our goal here is to be a resource for the Charlestown neighborhood and to be a store that reflects the neighborhood. There are so many different opportunities. We’re looking forward to all the really great partnerships.

How can someone learn more about jobs at the new Charlestown store? As soon as we are hiring for the Charlestown store, we’re going to be promoting job fairs that we’ll have within the Charlestown community. People can follow us on social media—Facebook, Twitter [pending]—or learn more at wholefoodsmarket.com/careers. We’ll be promoting the job fairs within the community. It will be everywhere.