One Day, One Job » food merchandising

Sambazon

Willy Franzen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:55:37 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve heard of açaí, but apparently it’s all the rage these days. In fact the buzz has gotten so big that the newest Internet scam is to push açaí as celebrity-endorsed weight loss products. This is giving açaí, a berry that has “30x the antioxidants of red wine, and an essential fatty acid profile similar to olive oil,” a terrible reputation. I think that we all know that this berry isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but that doesn’t mean that you should miss out on “getting with the purple berry.” Sambazon is a company that does açaí right. They “promote sustainable management of the Brazilian Amazon by providing the highest quality whole food, organic, fair trade Açaí products to consumers.” In other words they make products like juices, smoothies, energy drinks, sorbets, and supplements (with no false promises of instant weight loss like the scammer/spammers). I think that I first heard about Sambazon over a year ago from the Inc 5000, but I’ve been waiting for them to post some jobs that I can feature here.

These Jobs Are the Berries

Finally, Sambazon has some jobs that I think that some of you might be interested in, but first you should get to know the company a little better. The best way to do that is to check out their blog. Lately Sambazon co-founder, Ed “Skanda” Nichols, has been doing a series called The Real Deal Açaí Blog Series to address all of the crap that has been going on in the açaí industry. Reading up on this series is probably the best way to get a feel for what the company is about and how they work. If you like what you see and want to be part of the Sambazon Team (which is actually for athletes sponsored by Sambazon), then you should check out Sambazon’s Jobs page, which is hidden in a tiny font on the sidebar of their Contact page. The jobs that they have aren’t exactly ideal for most new college grads, but they look pretty cool. Sambazon is looking for Part-Time Retail Sales Merchandisers/Demonstrators in Dallas/Ft. Worth; TX, Houston, TX; and Seattle, WA. These are sales jobs that require a lot of travel by car, but they’ll get your foot in the door of a company that is cool, exciting, and growing. The application instructions differ depending on which location you’re applying for, so check out the job postings to get all of the details. Also, if you think that you could add something to Sambazon team even though they don’t have a job posted for you, you can always try reaching out to them at jobs@sambazon.com

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever tried açaí?

POM Wonderful

Willy Franzen — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:42:55 +0000

For a long time fruit juices other than orange juice (and prune juice) were largely the domain of young children. I’m not sure why this was, but I still to this day feel like a kid when I drink juice. Over the past few years we’ve seen juice gain in popularity – not grape or apple juice, but more exotic juices like pomegranate, cherry, and acai. POM Wonderful has been one of the companies that profited the most from the upswing in adult juice consumption. Maybe it’s all of the health benefits of the pomegranate that is convincing adults to hit the juice. It’s hard to not like something that improves cardiovascular and prostate health while also improving erectile function. Not to mention that pomegranates are loaded with antioxidants. With those health benefits and great marketing, POM Wonderful is primed for continued success – they’re the largest producer of pomegranates in the United States.

Wonderful Entry Level Jobs

How could you not want to work for a company with “Wonderful” in its name? They make delicious juices, they have clever packaging, and creative ads. They also have jobs all over the world, although their entry level opportunities seem to be restricted to West Los Angeles, CA. Right now there are two jobs available that look like they might be good ways for new college grads to get a foot in the door at POM Wonderful. These jobs are Administrative Assistant and Administrative Sales & Merchandising Coordinator. You can find the full descriptions by visiting POM Wonderful’s Careers page, and you can apply online directly from the job postings. Sounds wonderful, huh?

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you drink POM?

Wegmans

Willy Franzen — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:00:37 +0000

If you’ve never spent time in upstate New York or the mid-Atlantic, you probably don’t even know what Wegmans is. The One Day, One Job team is made up of Cornell kids, so we developed quite the obsession with the supermarket chain during what we call our “time on the hill.” For those of you who aren’t blessed with a Wegmans in your college town, we’ll fill you in. Wegmans is the best supermarket in the world. Wegmans is an acceptable place to take a date for dinner. Wegmans is the place to go when you decide to bake cookies at 3:00 A.M. Wegmans is the thing you miss most about college after you graduate. And in case you didn’t know, Wegmans is also one of the best places to work in America – Fortune Magazine has had them on their list of the 100 Best Places to Work for 11 straight years (#3 this year, top 10 the past 6 years).

From what we can tell, Wegmans doesn’t offer entry-level job opportunities in the sense that we usually talk about. They have a ton of jobs that require no prior experience, but they’re not jobs that require a college education either. Wegmans is a bottom-up type of company, so starting out as in a “customer service” role is probably necessary to future success in a leadership position at Wegmans. It might be possible for some to leap into some sort of management position based on education and internship experience, but we wouldn’t count on it. Considering that Wegmans has over 35,000 employees, we’d imagine that they also have corporate jobs at the their headquarters in Rochester, NY, but we can’t find much information about them. That’s because Wegmans fills most of those jobs with people who have succeeded at the store level. The only fast track at Wegmans is great performance and customer service while working in the trenches.

Wegmans offers both pay and benefits that are unparalleled in the grocery industry. In fact, they might even be competitive with other entry-level jobs that you’d be looking at. What really stands out, though, is Wegmans’ scholarship program. In the program’s 25 years, they’ve awarded $63 million in scholarships. This isn’t just for you to go to college, but also to extend your education in other ways. For instance, someone in the meat department might be able to get a scholarship to study charcuterie (sausage making) in France. How cool is that?

The types of jobs that Wegmans offers may not be exactly what you’re looking for after you graduate, but take some time to think them over. If you want to go into food merchandising or marketing, there are few better places to learn the ins and outs of the grocery business. The same can be said if you want to learn how companies can use customer service as a competitive advantage. Wegmans is also a great place to get started in a culinary career. So, before you write off Wegmans’ jobs because they won’t put your degree to use right away, consider your future aspirations and how Wegmans might be able to help you achieve them.

To get a job at Wegmans, use their store locator to find a location near where you want to live and then browse through their job listings.

P.S. While we were writing this post, Wegmans completely revamped their website. All the links we put together changed. We did our best to update them, but there might be a few things that we missed. That’s just more of a reason for you to head over to Wegmans.com and check it out for yourself. The new site is a big improvement in a lot of ways, and it has even more information than before.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Wegmans.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

If you’re not going to apply for a job at Wegmans, at least figure out which of your friends go to school in a Wegmans town, so that you can make a road trip and go visit them.