New Seasons Market


New Seasons Market or New Seasons is a chain of privately owned grocery stores operating in the Portland, Oregon metro area, southwestern Washington, Seattle, and northern California. Some of the products offered are organic and produced locally in the Pacific Northwest, but conventional groceries are also sold.
Founded by three families and 50 of their friends in 1999, the company was majority acquired by private equity firm Endeavour Capital in 2013 and purchased California-based New Leaf Community Markets in November 2013. In December 2019, a deal was announced to sell New Seasons Market to , a subsidiary of South Korean company E-mart.
The company currently operates 18 stores in the greater Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area, including Hillsboro, Beaverton, Happy Valley, Vancouver, Tualatin, and Lake Oswego; and one store in San Jose, California.

History

New Seasons was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1999. By 2008, it had grown to nine stores and about 1,800 employees. By November 2013, New Seasons had grown to 15 stores and 3,000 employees, when it purchased California-based New Leaf Community Markets and New Leaf founder Scott Roseman joined the New Seasons Board.
New Seasons Market
In November 2013, Endeavour Capital invested $17.5M in New Seasons Market, according to SEC filings. Bradaigh Wagner and Stephen Babson, Managing Directors at Endeavour, now sit on the board of New Seasons Market.
In 2013, New Seasons became the first grocery store in the world to be certified as a B Corporation. B Corp certification is issued by global non-profit B Lab to for-profit companies meeting social sustainability, environmental performance, accountability, and transparency standards. The company earned re-certification in 2015 and 2017, recognized for employee benefits, community non-profit donations and volunteer hours, environmental programs and transparent governance. In December 2017, New Seasons Market employees and the Northwest Accountability Project asked B Lab to review the company's certification based on claims of anti-union activity and Endeavour's financial ties to the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
In January 2019, then co-president Forrest Hoffmaster assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer, and former co-president Kristi McFarland took on the role of Chief Strategy Officer, alongside Chief Operations Officer Mark Law and Chief Marketing Officer Mary Wright.
In December 2019, parent company Endeavour Capital announced that it would be selling the grocery chain to E-mart in a sale transaction that is expected to be finalized in early 2020. Details of the transaction include the retention of CEO Forrest Hoffmaster who will continue running the business, the continuance of the organization as a B Corp, the halt of existing plans for expanding the chain, and the closure of the store located in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle.

Stores

GMO labeling

After encouraging vendors to voluntarily certify their products as GMO free in 2013, New Seasons publicly endorsed the GMO labeling campaign, Oregon Right to Know, in 2014, with continued public advocacy for non-GMO labeling and certification in 2017

Wage initiatives

In 2015, New Seasons took a vocal position in support of raising the minimum wage in Oregon, raising starting wages at all stores to $12 an hour, and testifying at the Oregon State Senate hearings in 2016 in support of raising minimum wage across the state. New Seasons announced pay increases again in 2018, raising minimum pay to $15 across every region, effective February 2019.

Controversies

Gentrification contributions

When New Seasons opened stores in the North Williams and St. Johns neighborhoods of Portland, some residents questioned if the stores would contribute to the gentrification of these historically black and working-class neighborhoods. In an interview with The Oregonian newspaper in 2015 former head of store development, Jerry Chevasuss said that the grocery store targets neighborhoods in the process of gentrification, and that often the addition of a New Seasons will push rents and home values higher, adding to that process.
Some long-time Seattle residents voiced concerns that a planned store in the Central District, a formerly red-lined, historically black, neighborhood in Seattle currently undergoing rapid gentrification, would cater to new residents and not serve existing communities.

New Seasons Workers United

In October 2017 a group of Portland-based employees at New Seasons Market formed the organization New Seasons Workers United and launched a public campaign to discuss working conditions at their stores. Employees cited changes implemented since Endeavour Capital acquired majority ownership as a major impetus for organizing. New Seasons Market hired union-avoidance consulting firm Cruz and Associates, notable for its unsuccessful contract with Trump Hotels to prevent unionization of the hotel's employees.