When Healthy home Market, the popular Plaza Midwood health food store, closed its doors for good in January, many customers were surprised và dismayed. How could such a business fail in a trendy & up-and-coming neighborhood that seemed a perfect fit for organic và fresh products, they wondered. What went wrong? Michael Maddox has an answer.
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"Part of
Maddox knows what he's talking about. He's been in the food business practically since birth, learning the meat cutting trade at his family's meat processing plant in Jefferson, Georgia. He moved into management at BI-LO grocery stores, before becoming the vice president of retail operations at Healthy home Market from 2002 to lớn 2015.
Maddox is currently the CEO of Organic Harvest Community Grocery & Café, the Alabama-based grocer opening a new health food store in October in the 10,000-square-foot space at 1330 Central Avenue previously occupied by Healthy home Market.
click to lớn enlarge Organic Harvest Community Grocery & Café will mở cửa its doors soon in Plaza Midwood. (Photo by Pat Moran)
Organic Harvest, which sells organic & natural groceries, meat, beer & wine as well as fresh produce, currently has one store in suburban Birmingham, Alabama with two more on the way in the fall & spring. Maddox is spearheading the Alabama chain's expansion. The Charlotte store is a particularly good fit for him, he says, since he designed & launched the Plaza Midwood Healthy home Market store in the first place.
"When I designed that
His kiến thiết for the new Organic Harvest has been determined by the store's target market, Maddox continues.
"There's a great group moving into the neighborhood — younger professionals," Maddox says. These consumers are smarter shoppers than previous generations, he maintains. They kiểm tra labels, look at ingredients, work out regularly & are more discerning about what they put in their bodies, Maddox says. He believes Organic Harvest will fill a Charlotte market niche not served by conventional supermarkets in the area.
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The new store will open in the first week of October, Maddox says. He purchased the location through Healthy trang chủ Market's bankruptcy process in February, so assets including cash registers và refrigerator compartments are being repurposed. Since the space transition is not a full build-out from scratch, the main hurdles are housekeeping details, Maddox continues -—repainting, resurfacing the floors, putting up new signage, installing a new computer system and securing permits.
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click to enlarge Maddox at Healthy home Market. (Photo Courtesy of Michael Maddox)
Maddox, now 63 years old, left the family meatpacking business at age 22. After earning a bachelor's degree in business marketing and management, he started working as a meat cutter at BI-LO. (Maddox also studied sale and management và business administration at Cornell University.) Soon BI-LO's management recognized that Maddox had a knack for organization and leadership.
"They would send me to lớn operations that were not profitable & in trouble, and I would straighten them out," he remembers. BI-LO put him through management training, & he progressed khổng lồ district manager. Wanting khổng lồ take a break from management, Maddox left BI-LO và started working for Healthy trang chủ Market, then called trang chủ Economist Market. Founded in 1979, trang chủ Economist was originally just another grocery store, Maddox says. "They carried everything from soda pop to lớn organic produce. They didn't have an identity."
Maddox hit it off with company president, owner & founder Gerald York, who noticed Maddox's talent for grocery retail management. York asked Maddox to mở cửa the company's South Boulevard store. After that, York and Maddox struck a handshake deal, Maddox remembers, granting Maddox total flexibility & control in charting the course & establishing an identity for the company's retail outlets. Maddox changed the name of the store to lớn Healthy trang chủ Market và moved towards stocking và selling organic và natural foods. In all, Maddox designed & opened a total of three stores. Under his stewardship, sales increased from $6.5 million to $18 million over the course of eight years. "Sales started growing because people knew they could come into our stores và expect unique products," Maddox explains. He reported regularly to York, who took on the role of silent president và owner.
"I met with him each month và told him how well we were doing và he was happy," Maddox says. The situation changed when York, then in his 80s, decided to step aside for new management. "The
click to lớn enlarge Maddox (in hat by front door) flanked by Organic Harvest team. (Photo Courtesy of Michael Maddox)
He left the company & started consulting, a career track that brought him into liên hệ with Organic Harvest. A silent owner purchased the Hoover, Alabama-based store và hired Maddox as CEO, tasked with opening new stores and expanding Organic Harvest into a chain. Organic Harvest's mission will be similar lớn Healthy Home's under his stewardship, Maddox promises. They will not phối conventional products with organics, he pledges.
"We're going lớn maintain our ethics và keep true to who we are," he says.
As Maddox prepares khổng lồ return khổng lồ Charlotte — he still owns a trang chủ he bought in Sherrill's Ford when he worked at Healthy trang chủ Market — he admits that it's bittersweet to lớn return khổng lồ his old place of employment. "I put a lot of years into Healthy home Market & it was very sad khổng lồ see it go down," he says. But for the most part, he has his eyes on the future. He's focused on opening Organic Harvest stores and expanding the brand's concept, Maddox says.
"When the Charlotte store became available it was the perfect opportunity khổng lồ move in and địa chỉ cửa hàng it khổng lồ our portfolio," he says. "Now I just need to connect the dots between Alabama và Charlotte."