“A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the marketplace. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.” So wrote Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo in Meinhard v. Salmon, 249 N.Y. 458, 464, 164 N.E. 545, 547 (1928). Or, as Ben & Jerry’s said in the 1980s, “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?”The Doughboy in this instance is not Pillsbury (the owners of Haagen Dazs and the folks who once tried to intimidate supermarkets into not selling Ben & Jerry’s) but the Golub Corporation, owners of the Price Chopper supermarkets. Long ensconced on the Route 12A shopping strip in West Lebanon, Price Chopper recently took over the old P&C supermarket on Lebanon’s Miracle Mile – a good deal closer to the Lebanon store of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society.
The co-op, of course, is owned by the community and thus committed to transparency about its business success. The folks who run and govern the co-op (myself among them, since I am a board member) are trustees – and, as Judge Cardozo noted, held to something stricter than the morals of the marketplace.
Not so with the folks who run Price Chopper, as suggested by this recent dispatch (below) from the Co-op’s employee newsletter. Though Pillsbury’s was arguably violating the law by trying to keep Ben & Jerry’s from being widely available, here there is no question of illegality. But it would be my respectful suggestion that this kind of devious conduct is precisely why co-ops are better than investor-owned businesses in providing people with vital goods like food.
And, just like Ben & Jerry's blew the whistle on the Doughboy, maybe everyone should know about what Price Chopper has been up to.
You should be aware of frequent attempts by persons outside the Co-op to learn our weekly sales figures. We have learned of at least 6 phone calls from outside of the Co-op from persons seeking to learn our weekly sales figures. THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.
Calls have been received at the Hanover Service Desk, [the Co-op's back office at] Chiron Springs, and recently, directly to [General Manager] Terry Appleby. While we don’t have many details, the pattern of the calls is clear. Most of the phone calls have come from persons stating that they are members or other cooperators. They will often say something like we love your store, we’re just wondering what the weekly sales are. The co-op where we used to live would give all members this information weekly. The caller(s) tend to get a little pushy when our staff has told them we are not going to share that information with them. On more than one occasion, staff at the Hanover Service Desk has noticed that the Caller I.D. on our phone system listed a Golub Corp. as the source of the call.
That is exactly what Terry Appleby noticed on the call he received. Here are details that Terry shared to alert members of Management Team:
Just got off the phone with a guy who was representing himself as “a student and a member of the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany” named Josh. Josh said that he had been in our stores and they were awesome, and he wanted some information on the square footage and weekly sales and things like that.
As it happened, when I answered the phone I noticed the call was coming from the Golub Corp. The Golub Corporation is the parent of Price Chopper Supermarkets. I asked Josh why he wanted this info and he said he was a member of the co-op and that they were doing an expansion and they needed info, etc. He also mentioned something about the Sage Graduate School and the work he was doing for a class there.
I told Josh I noticed he was calling from the Golub Corp and wondered if he wasn’t an employee of Price Chopper, which he admitted he was, but that was only his job and he was calling for the co-op. I then asked him to give me his full name, which he refused to do. I then told him we often share information with other co-ops but that I would not be sharing info with him, and he got kind of offended that I was being combative with him.
I then called Cindee Lolik, the manager of Honest Weight to see if she had anyone named Josh working on her expansion committee. Guess what, they don’t. So, it seems that Price Chopper is getting very interested in what is going on at the Co-op. They ought to learn not to call from headquarters when they want information.
You should be aware of frequent attempts by persons outside the Co-op to learn our weekly sales figures. We have learned of at least 6 phone calls from outside of the Co-op from persons seeking to learn our weekly sales figures. THIS IS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.
Calls have been received at the Hanover Service Desk, [the Co-op's back office at] Chiron Springs, and recently, directly to [General Manager] Terry Appleby. While we don’t have many details, the pattern of the calls is clear. Most of the phone calls have come from persons stating that they are members or other cooperators. They will often say something like we love your store, we’re just wondering what the weekly sales are. The co-op where we used to live would give all members this information weekly. The caller(s) tend to get a little pushy when our staff has told them we are not going to share that information with them. On more than one occasion, staff at the Hanover Service Desk has noticed that the Caller I.D. on our phone system listed a Golub Corp. as the source of the call.
That is exactly what Terry Appleby noticed on the call he received. Here are details that Terry shared to alert members of Management Team:
Just got off the phone with a guy who was representing himself as “a student and a member of the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany” named Josh. Josh said that he had been in our stores and they were awesome, and he wanted some information on the square footage and weekly sales and things like that.
As it happened, when I answered the phone I noticed the call was coming from the Golub Corp. The Golub Corporation is the parent of Price Chopper Supermarkets. I asked Josh why he wanted this info and he said he was a member of the co-op and that they were doing an expansion and they needed info, etc. He also mentioned something about the Sage Graduate School and the work he was doing for a class there.
I told Josh I noticed he was calling from the Golub Corp and wondered if he wasn’t an employee of Price Chopper, which he admitted he was, but that was only his job and he was calling for the co-op. I then asked him to give me his full name, which he refused to do. I then told him we often share information with other co-ops but that I would not be sharing info with him, and he got kind of offended that I was being combative with him.
I then called Cindee Lolik, the manager of Honest Weight to see if she had anyone named Josh working on her expansion committee. Guess what, they don’t. So, it seems that Price Chopper is getting very interested in what is going on at the Co-op. They ought to learn not to call from headquarters when they want information.
0 comments:
Post a Comment