Basics Market Flips the Script on Retail Grocery

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.

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.

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.

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.