Have you ever walked down just the cereal aisle of a Whole Foods-type organic grocery store? The options are endless. Do you want your grains sprouted or flaked? Or do you want to really mix it up with maple buckwheat flakes? Maybe you're feeling something crunchier, like something including the words "flax plus" or "whole wheat"?

 

Ethically sourced fine-ground cacao chocolate bars? Aisle seven, twenty-three feet down, second shelf on your right side. (Source)

That's just the shopping experience in one aisle of a store specializing in organic eccentricities. If that variety of victuals appeals to you, you could be the person paid $55,000 per year to make sure there's enough of the Natural Intentions Organic Lemongrass and Pumpernickel Cereal (we made that up) stocked, and that it's shelved in a place where consumers are most likely to buy it (source). Not too shabby as salaries go, but it does mean you need to know where everything is in that 38,000 square foot behemoth.

The route to the manager position at an organic grocery probably isn't too linear...in a this-has-always-been-my-dream-job sort of way. It seems doubtful that, being pushed in the cart by your mom when you were five, you looked around at the endless bounty of packaged foodstuffs and decided you wanted to be the master of that domain. 

But if that does happen to sound like you, or if running a grocery store seems like something you might like to do, we're here to tell you all you need to know about turning that dream into a reality.

All that having been said, there are some initial things you should know about the state of the grocery industry. For starters, it's more competitive than moms at a children's beauty pageant.

Whole Foods was once the number one giant in health food, but now stores like Kroger and Trader Joe's and even—gasp—Walmart have latched onto the healthy, organic groceries craze. Kroger is now one of the nation's top seller of organic foods (source), and Trader Joe's sells more than twice as much as Whole Foods per square foot (source). 

Beyond knowing where everything is in the store, the grocery manager has to be exceedingly efficient and organized. They're responsible for inventory upkeep, which is a huge job when the store is so big. 

They also have to manage the staff, which will often include a small army of disinterested (at best) teenagers working their first job—perhaps the most daunting task of all. A big grocery store has a lot of moving parts, and it's the job of the manager to keep the machine running and well-oiled.

 

Try to avoid displays like this at all costs. (Source)

Imagine a day when everything goes wrong: the store is low on milk, and the new shipment has just arrived three hours late, and a quarter of the cartons exploded on the way over; three of your checkout clerks called in sick last-minute, and now the lines are extended halfway down the aisles and full of annoyed-looking customers; a kid running around the store knocked into the display of flaxseed and chocolate graham crackers and made a huge mess. 

It's the stuff that nightmares are made of, and that could all happen before the workday is half over.

Do you think you have what it takes to steer the ship when there's a raging storm thrashing the decks? We think you have it in you. Just sneak a granola bar, grab some coffee from the on-staff barista, and take a few deep breaths. It'll all be fine.

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