Basics Market Flips the Script on Retail Grocery

By Sherrie Terry

Basics Market is a collection of small-footprint food stores in greater Portland, OR with a mission-driven, community-centric message of being a “market with a purpose: nurturing strong, healthy communities through food.” It’s founded on the belief that one of the best things for your health is cooking your own food and that the most nourishing ingredients are fresh, in-season, and locally grown.

Basics Market founder Chuck Eggert

Founder Chuck Eggert opened the first Basics “mini-market” in 2017 inside Portland’s Faubion School to provide students, teachers and staff easy access to affordable nutritious foods and home goods.

A self-described “market, classroom, and gathering place,” culinary and nutrition education comes first at Basic Market, supported by a curated assortment of fresh, organic, and local products for sale. The first neighborhood Basics Market opened in Portland’s Hollywood district in September 2018, followed by Tualatin (November 2019), and Hillsdale (February 2020). Later this year, a fourth store is slated for Portland’s Pearl district. The company is independently owned and operated through Eggert’s Wild Rose Foods and is projecting to have 12 Pacific Northwest locations by 2022.

Basics Market Wild Rose Community Food System

Earlier this year, I visited the Tualatin Basics Market, the smallest of the three neighborhood stores; Bright and clean, with impeccably faced shelves. Beautifully displayed fresh produce, meat, and seafood. Front-and-center “Meal Stations” with high-graphic visuals and take-home recipe cards. Modern Discovery Kitchen and Nutrition Classroom. Every aspect of a Basics Market is designed to achieve its mission.

• Small footprint with a meal-centric layout: Basics Markets are intentionally small, between 5,000-13,000 square feet. Each layout is slightly different, but all are easy to navigate and organized around meal solutions. “Meal Stations” featuring rotating chef-inspired, nutritionist-vetted, simple-to-prepare meals and recipes are centrally located, with all ingredients merchandised in a single display. Shoppers can get in-and-out quickly with a delicious, good-for-you meal they can cook themselves.

A Basic Market's "meal station"

• Limited, carefully curated assortment: To keep prices affordable and shopping easy, Basics offers only 2,500-3,000 SKUs. Assortment is built around 100 regularly purchased “essentials”. Distribution authorization is prioritized by contribution to healthy diet/lifestyle, local and sustainable suppliers, quality, and affordability. Grab-and-go and in-store fresh-prepared options are limited to minimize operating costs and food and packaging waste.
• Focus on fresh, local, and sustainable: Basics stocks select pantry staples and frozen foods, but the majority of their offering is fresh, locally sourced produce, meat, seafood, eggs, cheese, dairy, jams and other products procured from Wild Rose Foods and its network of Oregon organic, sustainable farms and food producers. Local buying and direct farm-to-market shipping increases best-of-the-season product access, preserves freshness and nutrition, reduces waste, eliminates cost and time, and builds consumer trust.

Basics Market in Portland's Hollywood District

Eggert established Wild Rose Foods to bring Oregon grown and produced foods to market, including those from his own operations. Eggert family farms, dairies, and ranches represent one of the largest organic agriculture operations in Oregon. Together with their network of like-minded farmers and producers (who prioritize soil health, animal welfare, regenerative practices and seasonal rhythms), Wild Rose Foods supplies much of the fresh, perishable food sold in Basics Markets. This vertical integration provides greater quality and cost control, supports rural communities, and helps nurture small- to mid- sized agricultural companies.

Basics Market Discovery Kitchen in Portland's Hollywood District

• Discovery Kitchen & Nutrition Classroom in every store: One-third of each store’s footprint is dedicated to education and a state-of-the-art kitchen. Basics offers a full schedule of free classes daily, including hands-on cooking and kitchen skills, interactive demonstrations, and nutrition education. Classes are designed to educate and inspire customers to experiment with new recipes; to understand food’s role in healthy lifestyles and disease prevention; to more readily adopt health- or diet-specific meal plans; and to encourage and facilitate more cooking at home. (Note: classes are currently suspended due to COVID-19 but will resume when social distancing requirements are lifted.)

• Leadership and staff walk the talk: Fernando Divina is President, Creative Director, and Executive Chef. Previously, he served as Oregon Health Sciences University executive chef, where he directed food and nutritional programs, developed a preventive cardiology cooking program and taught workshops. He collaborates with healthcare experts to inform his menu and recipe development for Basics. Davina is also working with OHSU to help prove the theory that foods served as soon as possible [after harvest] have the best nutritional value.

Fernando Divinia, president, creative director, and executive chef at Basics Market

The leadership team boasts seven nutrition and four culinary professionals. Basics’ classes are taught by in-store Culinary and Nutrition Mentors who are always on-site to answer shoppers’ questions, advise on meal plans, and suggest recipes. Store management and staff are approachable, well-trained, and focused on creating shopper relationships through service and education.

• Healthcare Community partnerships: Basics Market partners with local healthcare systems to strengthen the role of food as medicine. Proximity to healthcare clinics is integral to store site selection. By design, the Hollywood Basics Market is next door to a Portland Clinic. In an innovative collaboration, clinic doctors refer patients to Basics’ nutrition and cooking classes to help educate them on avoiding/improving health conditions through healthy eating. They pair Basics’ in-house nutritionists with patients for consultations, and doctors write healthy food prescriptions that can be filled at Basics.

Fueled by passionate belief in the role fresh, nutritious, home-cooked meals play in individual and community-wide health, Basics Market flips the script on traditional grocery. It hits squarely on consumer trends, delivering true shopper value. Perhaps Basics Market’s innovative approach is just the model that independent, specialty grocery stores need to survive and thrive.