City Market by the Numbers

By Allison Weinhagen, Director of Member Services

Our members and customers are so much more than numbers to us! Your patronage provides all of us who work here with the ability to keep great food on the shelves, partner with many local farmers and food producers, support local non-profits who work to strengthen the local food system and eradicate childhood hunger, and offer a variety of entertaining and educational classes and events.

Sometimes, however, it’s helpful to have just a bit more information about our customers. To this end, we conducted a survey last month asking you to share some thoughts. Much to our delight, over 1,400 of you spent some time online (or on paper) giving us your feedback. While I haven’t had time to fully dive into the numbers yet, you can bet I’m looking forward to it. Many of our survey respondents also entered our drawing for one of ten $50 City Market gift cards. While we haven’t picked names yet, if you’re a winner we’ll contact you shortly by phone or e-mail (good luck!).

Hopefully, those of you who responded will find that the value of the time you spent taking the survey will be returned to you through changes and upgrades City Market makes to better meet your needs. I hope to learn, among other things, what benefits are most important to our members, your sources of news and information, when you like to shop, which areas of the store do and don’t meet your needs, and what kinds of information you like to receive from us (and how).

City Market doesn’t often reach out to our customers for this kind of data, so I’m simply honored that when we do, we get many responses from a diverse cross-section of our customer base. Over the long term, it will help us to better meet your needs. And for the next few months, it will certainly give us something to discuss with our staff while we sort through the information you’ve been willing to share.

In addition to the survey data, we review and often discuss every customer comment card and all of your emails that include suggestions, comments and product requests. This, along with any feedback you give directly to our staff members, guides us in many decision-making opportunities, from what local products to offer to what types of items you’d like to see featured on the hot bar.

Thank you for your patronage of City Market! We truly appreciate all the ways that you participate in your community-owned Co-op and contribute to making the greater Burlington area a better place to work, shop, live, recreate and grow amazing food. Enjoy this summer and all of the opportunities it brings to enjoy our community.