How Jimbo's Became One Of The Most Admired Retailers In The U.S.

0:10Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Jimbo Somek, the founder of admired natural grocery chain Jimbo's. It's doubtful that Jimbo Somek would ever characterize himself as an influencer, but it's an apt description given his passionate and effective advocacy for organic and natural foods, something that he's been doing for the past five decades. Jimbo is the founder of organic-centric grocery chain Jimbo's, which operates four locations in the San Diego area. He opened his first store in 1984 and has long been a prominent figure in the development of the natural food industry.

0:57Jimbo's standards for selling high-quality and nutritious food has won the chain Plotts and Admirers. Meanwhile, its embrace of nascent and innovative concepts has earned it a reputation as a breeding ground for disruptive food and beverage brands. In this interview, Jimbo chronicled the origins of his interest in organic food and his grocery chain, how Jimbo's evaluates novel ideas and products, and how he leverages his influence to promote values that he's passionate about, including regenerative agriculture.

1:30Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am honored to be sitting down with Jimbo Somek, who is the founder and CEO of Jimbo's. Jimbo, great to see you. My pleasure. Happy to be here. You've been in the grocery business. You've been in the organic food business for a very, very long time. When we spoke last, I think you mentioned this is your fifth decade in organic. I started when I came from, I had been going to finish my first year of college and decided that I wanted to take a break from having been in school ever since I could remember. and my brother was out here and I came out in 1973.

2:11So just a couple of months ago, I crossed 50 years of working in the natural foods industry. Behind you and you're in a office and I love the fact that your office is pretty bare bones. I mean, if I would think of like an office in the 80s, you know, it's just like white walls, a few posters behind you. There's like a calendar with a pin holding it up against the wall. There's not much there. You're not trying to have this elegant, elaborate office. Our mission and Bill of Rights is behind me. So that's what I hold near and dear to my heart. Yeah, well, I want to talk about your mission because I see that over your right shoulder.

2:49And there are three parts to your mission. And then underneath it is our vision, as in Jimbo's vision. And the first thing, if I can read this correctly, says, we do the right thing. What is the right thing? What does that mean? Well, we typically, I mean, a lot of people, a lot of companies say this is what they do, but they don't walk the talk. And we really believe that what we say in our mission is something that we need to walk the talk. So by doing the right thing, it's not just talking about what we believe in, what our mission and our, we feel our, what we call our bill of rights. We walk the talk and we've had many opportunities to not walk the talk, but we want our customers to know that when they shop us, they can trust that what we say we're going to do and who we say we are, they can believe that that is actually the reality.

3:45And now the next part of our mission is by providing the highest quality organic and natural foods. Well, I will say that all our produce 100 % organic. Our bulk is 100 % organic. The foods that we make in our delis are, I would say, 99 % organic ingredients. You know, not all grocery items are organic. So this mission statement was written, I would say, about, let's see, over about 30 years ago. And at the time, it was still challenging to get everything organic that we wanted. And as time has transpired, we feel stronger and stronger about the ability to bring in organic products and our commitment towards organic.

4:34And I think as we talked last time, we really now are moving towards regenerative organic, which is the next frontier for us. When you started getting involved in organic food and embracing it in your own personal life, what really motivated you? What inspired you to do so? Well, I think there are a couple things that come to mind. I think one is just the absence of, you know, chemicals being put into the food and therefore putting into my body. I think I brought up the analogy to you when we spoke before in regards to athletes during the off season and they come back and you hear they've recommitted themselves in their training and you never hear them that they're eating more junk food or drinking more soda.

5:28It's like they've cleaned up their diet. They're eating a lot more quality, natural and many times organic foods. And so if you have athletes that are wanting to perform at the highest level possible eating organic foods, why wouldn't people who may not be athletes still want to have their body performing at the highest efficiency possible? So it just hit me that that's the best foods. I mean, what you put into your body has got to have an impact on you. So if you're eating food that has chemicals on it, then you're going to have the chemicals in your body. And for me, that's something that I try not to have.

6:06I think the other piece that was really important to me was just the whole environmental and sustainability piece. And, you know, having to have people, whether it's farmers or migrant workers or whoever, having to work around chemicals all the time. As time has passed, we've seen that many of these chemicals have caused, if you're around it significantly, have caused diseases that are many times cancer. And it's not something that I want to be a participant in. And I think, you know, from an environmental sustainability piece, I think the land is much better off not having these chemicals on the land.

6:47We have one Earth here and hopefully a Mother Earth will be around for many, many generations. And so for me to reduce the amount of chemicals going into the land is a benefit for all. How does regenerative play into the future of food and the future of the food system? Well, it's a little bit more integrated than just organics. Organics really just talks about the food and the pesticides and the chemicals that you can or cannot use. Regenerative also talks about the land, but talks about paying people who work the land a fair wage, talks about the animals that live on the land being taken care of in a way that is sustainable and fair to the animals.

7:31So it's all encompassing. Some people talk about just regenerative, but without the word organic behind it, it's not the same. So that's why I always, when we mentioned regenerative, we always say regenerative organics because organics by themselves is really important to me. Regenerative is important, but if I had to choose between regenerative and organic, I would say I would prefer organic, but regenerative organic brings in both components together. And that's where we at Jimbo's are headed towards, trying to support as many regenerative organic brands as possible. You had a love for organic food.

8:09It's continued on to this day. And your love for organic food began many years ago, as you mentioned, and it continues through today. When you started the first Jimbo store, was it as much about seeing an opportunity for organic food to be sold to as many people as possible? Or was it just, you know, your passion to be able to give people a more accessible option for organic produce and consumer brands? Well, I certainly would say that I wasn't convinced that I was going to be able to live off the business of when I opened my first store. So I think, you know, when I look back, I would say that it was something that I passionately believed in and I wanted to have a store that would allow other people to purchase organic produce and hopefully educate people around organics.

9:03And when I had my first store that opened up, it was a 5 ,000 square foot store, but the retail size was probably like 3 ,500 square feet. I had an organics at that time was not, you know, something that you could readily get. And so I would say maybe 50, 60 percent of the produce was organic and the rest was conventional produce. Sometimes I would have because you couldn't get enough organics like I would have both organic broccoli and conventional broccoli separated. But, you know, still selling both at the same time. And I remember I had family members come to me and customers say, you know, how do you trust your customers to tell you that the produce is organic when they might say it's conventional because the price is cheaper on the conventional side?

9:55And my belief, and to this day I still believe it, is that most people, customers who buy organic are so concerned and proud of the fact that they buy organic that they would say it's organic. You know, that they wouldn't lie. You know, they wouldn't be buying organic food and then say, well, no, I got conventional. They wanted you to know. Of course, now it's not, we don't sell any conventional, so it's not an issue. but I really wanted to make sure that people had the option to buy organic foods. And I can tell you in the first few years of having my store, I was out on the floor all the time talking to customers about the benefits and the reasons why, and why we sold organic and the importance of it.

10:41And as we can see, that was 40 years ago, but organics might've been something that they talked about the hippie and granola crowd only warning, but now it's mainstream. You know, one way to tell for sure, at least in my opinion, whether something is organic, certainly when it comes to produce, is just in taste. I used to eat a lot of non-organic produce, tomatoes, strawberries, peaches, what have you. And the difference between an organic strawberry or an organic tomato is there is no comparison between that and conventional, in my opinion. And I think that's the thing. I mean, everyone wants better taste.

11:22Everyone wants better flavor and they want just better food in their bodies. But I think accessibility and affordability makes it really difficult for a lot of people to do so. So, you know, when you open your first store. How did you think about those two things, accessibility and affordability? How has that changed and how has that evolved in opening more stores and expanding your chain? So let me just comment on the piece about the taste, because as we opened more stores, I was certainly less and less involved on the operational side of the business. But the last thing I gave up was ordering produce.

12:01I used to, when I opened my first store, I used to love to be on the floor and just offer our customers a taste of something that was just incredibly unbelievable and, you know, have them remark, you know, on so many occasions how it was so much better than the produce that they bought at the conventional stores. And it just was heartwarming to hear that. And as it relates to, you know, affordability and availability, you know, The affordability was a concern of how to bridge the gap between the importance of eating organic foods and the price difference. And the story I told you was about an elderly gentleman that shopped the store for the first year that we were open in 1984.

12:53And after a year of shopping, he was very meticulous about writing down everything that he was buying so that by the time he got to the cash register, he knew within pennies how much he was going to have to pay. And after a year of doing this, he pulled me by the side and said, can I talk to you? And I said, sure. And he said, you know, when you open up the store, I started shopping here instead of the local conventional store. And I've written down everything that I paid for compared to what I spent the year before. And he said, you know, and I can't remember the number. It was like, and again, he was an older gentleman and, you know, he didn't eat a whole lot, I assume.

13:31He said it was like three,$400 a year more that he spent. But, and I thought that wasn't bad, but what he said next was the most important thing that I, you know, carried with me since that. And he said, but I've never felt better in my life. And I've saved more than that on doctor's bills. So when I look at the cost of organics and, And certainly that has dropped tremendously as the supply has gotten greater. But when I look at, you know, it's like you want to pay now, you want to pay later. And so if I was going to spend, you know, you know, let's say it's a break even or let's say it's going to cost me, you know, another thousand dollars.

14:10But if my health is, you know, that much better because I'm not putting chemicals into my body, then it's worth it to me. You know, so, you know, you can put all the chemicals in the body and you can pay for diseases, maybe not immediately, but maybe three, five, 10, 15 years down the road. And, you know, what not only paying more on doctor's bills, but what kind of quality of life are you going to have? So it's something that I've always keep in the back of my head. And, you know, but it is a concern, you know, because you want to have it available to as many people who, you know, who can who want to have it.

14:51And so price is a consideration. And we're certainly aware of it when we price our items to make sure that we're doing a fair assessment of what we need to sell for so we can bring it to as many people as possible. And I think the fact that there is so much growth in organics is a testament to the importance that many consumers find that they want to have organics in their food world. When you opened your first store in 1984, I imagine that there weren't as many organic consumer brands as there are today. Today, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of organic food and beverage brands out there.

15:31But it also feels like if you go back to the question of taste and ingredients and price, I feel like the hierarchy for a lot of people back then was ingredients are most important. Maybe taste and price are kind of at the same level. Nowadays, when people buy an organic food brand or beverage brand, I think taste is number one, regardless of whether it's organic or not. It's just something you can't get around because there are so many options out there. So when you think about bringing brands into your stores and when you're vetting them in terms of what they're bringing to the table and what they're bringing to your customers, how do you think about that hierarchy?

16:14I mean, obviously organic is going to be very important, but does it trump taste? I don't think it trumps taste, but neither does taste trump organics. I think for us, there have been numerous instances where we would not bring a product in because it doesn't contain organic ingredients. And we have similar products already in the store that contain organic ingredients. But just because they contain organic ingredients doesn't mean that it doesn't have to taste good. So we hopefully are bringing organic products that tastes good into our stores. We would be hard-pressed to bring in a product that's not organic unless there is nothing else like it, no matter how good the taste is.

17:02But we found more often than not that we can find products that are organic, meet our ingredient standards that taste really good. But you're right, many years ago the ingredients were definitely a priority and taste was second or third of second or third importance. But as the industry has developed, there are a lot more options to find products that meet for us at Jimbo's our ingredient standards, but are products that taste incredibly great. And so that's what we do. Certainly something just because it contains organic ingredients or is 100 % organic, if we don't like the taste, we're not going to bring it in, even though we appreciate the fact that this company is using organic ingredients.

17:55What about minimal ingredients? You know, there are organic food brands out there where you might have, I don't know, 20 ingredients, you know, for a single cracker brand. And, you know, it's not only ingredients you might be concerned about, but it's the manipulation of those ingredients and how it's formulated or processed. How does that take, how does that come into consideration when you're vetting new brands? We look at that, but it's not as big a factor that we probably should make it. We certainly are aware that there are some of the products contain an enormous amount of ingredients. Sometimes we don't even understand what the ingredients are.

18:38And that's at the point of saying, okay, once we start to need to look up what these ingredients are, we start questioning it. And, you know, that brings to mind the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, you know, where it was written, you know, if you can't, you should try to have as few ingredients as possible. And if you can't say it, read it, or understand what the ingredients, you probably shouldn't eat it, you know. So certainly we try to keep that in mind, but we probably don't prioritize it as much as we should. Well, that's not a stain or a knock on you. I mean, you're a grocery store. You do have to have a lot of different products to cater to a lot of different people.

19:20And, you know, you do have competition, whether it's conventional grocery stores or ones that are focused on natural foods like a Whole Foods. But Jimbo's, like Erewhon in so many ways, feels like they operate at the ground zero level of what's trending and new and what's emerging in food and beverage. I've seen a lot of trends come and go. I've seen a lot of ingredients be hot one minute and cold the next. How do you assess trends, interesting ingredients when making decisions about what to bring into your stores? Well, first of all, let me clarify a piece that I really don't do much of the buying.

20:06I do approve virtually every product that comes into the store, but as far as curating it, we have buyers that do an awesome job of looking at the different options that they have and meeting with the brokers or the manufacturers and looking at these products and, you know, selecting the ones they feel would be best for the company. But to be clear, you have veto power. I do have veto power. It's a rubber stamp because, you know, sometimes they might miss an ingredient that I might say, well, what is this about? Or they may submit something to me knowing that they're going to get some kind of conversation.

20:48A lot of times I just say, OK, you know, it's not really a question. But every once in a while, I'll say, well, why would we carry, you know, like this nutrition bar? You know, they're saying it's incredibly awesome taste. And almost every nutrition bar we have is either 100 percent organic or contains a significant amount of organic ingredients. And so if they submit a nutrition bar that has, you know, the only organic ingredient might be organic sugar and everything else is not organic. I'm going to say, well, why bring it in? It's going to basically lower the standard that we already have committed towards.

21:29And so they do this very rare that I don't approve what they've already curated because they do such a great job. But it's like a second eye on it. And I think it also, because I'm not on the floor very much or as much as I had been in the past, it lets me kind of get some insight into the new products. I might not know what the products, some of the products that we are carrying or the new ones that we are bringing in. And, you know, and part of that also for the buyers is, and we touched on this when we talked, is the incredible opportunity that we have certainly in San Diego to bring in items that are local to San Diego, that are probably items that you might see at a farmer's market and people are wanting to launch.

22:20in a retail store. And our buyers do an awesome job of nurturing these novice wannabe manufacturers into getting them into our store. And it's great to see that we can help small cottage individuals who are just trying to launch their product and help them in their quest to get into a retail store. And for many of them, we've been the first retail store to carry their product. And we've pushed back on many occasions if the product doesn't contain, for example, organic ingredients that, hey, if you can switch to organic ingredients, then we will bring it in. And we tell them as part of that is more than likely, if it meets our standards, it'll probably meet virtually almost any other standards that are out there in the natural foods world.

23:18So, you know, some say the costs, as we talked about just moments ago, is a factor and they don't want to have a retail price that is over a certain amount. And so they don't want to do that. We understand. But for us, our customer is walking hand in hand with us and the quality of the products that we carry. And so we are, you know, we're not going to lower our expectation around organic ingredients, even if it is a local product. We want to help support the new person to really start thinking about switching to organics. And the more people we can convince, the better we feel, the better job we've done we feel in what we're trying to accomplish.

24:08As you noted, you're not making day-to-day buying decisions for Jimbo's, but I would think that as you're looking at new products, you might have some skepticism about some, and then you might have excitement about another, more confidence about another that it's going to be successful for one reason or another. What today gives you pause when you're seeing a particular trend or ingredients or product and what gives you confidence that it not only fits in your stores, but it has a runway and a pathway to success throughout the natural channel and beyond? Again, I leave a lot to our buyers, but part of it for me is the story behind the product and the passion that the person has for the product that they've created.

25:04So for me, sometimes when I see people who are doing it because they're doing it only because they want to make money off it, which is fine. There's nothing wrong. We're all here to, you know, earn a living. But if there's no passion behind it, you know, I get concerned that when they hit an obstacle that they're going to walk away. And And the more passion you have, the more you're willing to push forth, you know, on a product that you believe is really good. So and, you know, there are been different, I don't know, fads or hot items. Some stay on and some, you know, drop off. You know, even when gluten free started, who knows, 15 years ago, a lot of people say, well, that's going to kind of fade out.

25:55But it's really maintained. And, you know, sometimes you really don't know. And the best you can do is vet it for what you feel is what you think is going to be long term. And if so, you know, for us, if it's meets our ingredient standards, meets our taste standards, even if it's a new product, if we have a commitment from whoever the vendor is that they're going to demo it and support the product, we are more than likely willing to give it a shot, especially if it's a local product, because we want to not only support, like I said, these small entrepreneurs, but it's an advantage to us when they go to their farmer's market and customers say, well, where can you get the product?

26:42because I don't want to just come once a week or have to come to the farmer's market and they can say, hey, you can get it at Jimbo's. Well, we got another customer, hopefully, that's coming through our door on a regular basis. So it's a win-win situation. You accept and bring in a lot of local and emerging brands into your stores. What keeps them on shelf? I mean, is it just a sales kind of thing where if they're hitting their numbers, they're more likely to stay on shelf? Or do you have a bit more leeway when it comes to smaller brands? We give them a bit more leeway. We do encourage them to demo the brands because it's really hard for a customer to know what something's like, especially if it's a product that they haven't heard of and it's not in the mainstream.

27:33The only way for customers to know about it is to, you know, taste it. We try to, in our own world, to, you know, buyers have tasted it and they hopefully get our employees, our staff excited about a product. Like I said, with produce or even non-produce items, when I was on the floor, I would, you know, I'm passionate about what I do and I would get excited about, you know, products. So when customers would ask me for a recommendation, you know, it'd be like, oh, well, yeah, I can tell you about this. Or, you know, even items, you know, that I wouldn't eat or don't eat, you know, I'd say, well, you know, people tell me this is an amazing product, but I don't eat it for various reasons or whatever.

28:17But yeah, we give more leeway and we hope that it's supported. At some point, you know, if it's not selling on the shelf and they're not supporting it, there's not a lot we can do. And if that's the case, they're probably struggling. You know, if they're selling at other stores, it's probably not worth it to them to continue selling it on a retail level. So you think that's the primary reason why something wouldn't work at Jimbo's is it's just not being supported well enough? Or, you know, might there be other reasons? Well, if it doesn't taste well or the price point is too high, you know, customers may reject it.

28:53But we want to give people the opportunity to try to sell it in our store and really let the customer decide whether it should be on the shelf or not. You've seen a ton of brands come to market just over the last three years. The amount of sort of quote unquote pandemic babies that have been birthed and pretty amazing to see. But, you know, so many of them seem to be missing one thing or the other. And we've talked about taste. We've talked about price point. But I feel like there's another factor, which is great package design and marketing. And, you know, it's something that's table stakes these days.

29:27You just have to be great at both to really have a chance of being successful. You know, what have you seen in terms of great package design that differentiates one brand from another. And, you know, from a marketing standpoint, can you point at, you know, some examples of things that brands have done really, really well that have helped them get better awareness and better sales? Well, you know, we've put a strong emphasis because again, talking about our mission and walking the talk on packaging that is sustainable. So, you know, certainly there's a need to look really great on the shelf, but we're prioritizing the sustainability aspect of the packaging.