Berkeley Bowl is an Organic Produce Powerhouse

Berkeley Bowl is an independent, full-service supermarket located in the city of Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area with two markets.  The first store opened in 1977 as a small neighborhood market, and  moved into a 40,000 square foot renovated former Safeway in 1999.

In June of 2009, Berkeley Bowl West opened several miles away into a 140,000 square foot facility.  The company’s website claims that the new store’s produce department is “the largest in Northern California! It is also the cornerstone of our business.”

It’s organic apple department features more than a dozen varieties.

Longtime retail veteran Steve Tsujimoto, who spent 36 years with Safeway, joined Berkeley Bowl a couple of years ago and is in charge of produce operations.  “Our organic produce department is larger than most retail produce department.  It is a very important part of what we do," Tsujimoto said.

Hometown of the University of California at Berkeley, the retailer’s namesake city is known for its progressive nature, which also seems to define the businesses in town.  Unlike more traditional retailers, Berkeley Bowl is only open from 9 am to 8 pm as the founder believes employees should have ample time with their families. 

The organic connection runs throughout the store from department to department and is very important to the store’s core customers.  The store always has people lined up waiting to get in at the 9 am opening bell and it still brimming with people when the day is over. 

From fruits to vegetables to value-added options, Berkeley Bowl has an organic produce department that does not need to take a back seat to any other.

Tsujimoto said filling the organic produce department with supplies every day is a difficult but important task.  “Sometimes it is hard to find supplies but that is getting easier with more (organic) hydroponic operations and more growers adding organic acreage,” he said.

That task falls to organic produce buyer Nicholas Christopher, who started with the firm 19 years ago as a dishwasher (Berkeley Bowl has an extensive prepared food department) and has risen up through the ranks.

“It is a challenge to fill a department of this size,” he said, “especially at this time of year.”

Christopher noted that for conventional produce there are almost always multiple districts supplying the same item.  “That’s not true with organics.  The organic crop is usually coming from the same area so when you have rain and crummy weather like we have now, it is hard to find supplies,” Christopher said.

A specific produce promotional philosophy of Berkeley Bowl helps counteract the issue.  “We do not have weekly ads,” said Christopher.  “Every day we promote in-store depending upon what we were able to get good buys on.  That’s labor intensive and means more work for us as we have to continually build new displays, but it allows us to take advantage of whatever good buys are on the wholesale market every day.”