As individual food and beverage brands turn towards sustainability, and good for you ingredients, retailers have not kept up and customers are left shopping online. In an attempt to clean up your local bodega and provide a higher offering with organic foot traffic, founder Rachel Krupa launched The Goods Mart to foster community, clean ingredients, and conversations.

Rachel Krupa wasn’t always the owner of a retail store, The Goods Mart located on 189 Lafayette street in NYC, across the street from our favorite boys over at KOIO. In fact, she spent her last eighteen years in PR working with brands within the food and wellness industry. “I started my career in PR working for Lizzie Grubman Public Relations. But, before that, I was interning in PR in the political field but didn’t like wearing nylon clothing. I had a degree in political science and public relations.”

“I have one rule in life. If I am not happy with what I am doing every day, then why am I doing it?”

“This was the catalyst for starting my own PR agency. I quit in 2010 and started Krupa Consulting. It was really tough getting my first client, but all you need is one and then you grow based on referrals.” Rachel started her agency by focusing on restaurants and later entered wellness. After 3 years (and a decent Rolodex) she decided to only work with founders who are changing the narrative and shaking up their category in some sustainable way. Her clients include WTHN (previously featured on RADICHE), Shake Shack, Miss Grass, Sustain, Our Place, By Chloe, and more. “It’s about telling the story of the company from the business side, but also from the ingredient side and defining why it is cool.” Over the years, Rachel has been able to build strong relationships with publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Well + Good, and Fast Company.

By working closely with these founders, Rachel gained further insight into the marketplace and realized that there was no retail store, similar to a 711 business model that was selling good-for-you products in a convenient way. Alas, she decided to launch The Goods Mart in 2018 in LA and then NYC.

Unfortunately, her first store in LA didn’t work out according to plan as the rent was very high and the foot traffic low. It was her first time operating a retail store, and looking back there’s a lot more to it than one would think. Our advice? Margins, margins, margins! Plus foot traffic and lots of it. She shortly closed the LA shop and opened one in NYC.

“We want to create a closed-loop system.”

The Goods Mart sells snacks, food, coffee, CBD drinks, and Kombucha. Their product assortment is a mixture of new-comer startups and legacy brands, well-known snacks to establish a clientele, and reassure visitors that this space knows what is up. Instead of tipping, they allow customers to donate their tip to a charity from their network.

Their product offering includes brands who don’t use any artificial colors, artificial flavors, growth hormones and are GMO-free. If you are a beverage brand with single-use plastic packaging, they will not work with you (victory to the glass!).

However, as we all have experienced with COVID, retail has been taking a major hit these days and for some, it feels like the world is ending (especially in NYC where every store seems to be boarded up these days). In order to pivot and stay with the times, The Goods Mart is now offering a Surprise Snack Program in which consumers can create their own snack box to send or donate to other humans. If you are into paleo, vegan, gluten-free, and low sugar options, this one is for you!

The Advice

Rachel shares how everyone has their own journey and path in life and we shouldn’t compare our timelines to others. Her advice for those looking to start something:

There is never a right time to launch something, it is never going to be perfect.
Have a team that is smarter than you and can bring skills that you don’t have.
Know that when you have a setback there will always be a lesson learned. Hence, there is never really a wrong way to do something because it is the path you had to go through to get it right.
No one really knows what they are doing, but be confident in the decisions you make to find the right answer.
When it comes to PR, as a publicist you should never guarantee placement to founders, but instead, try to over-deliver on your promise. The hustle will get you there!

Bored at home and feeling the munchies? Try out The Goods Mart snack box to indulge in a healthier way of refueling your body. After all, you are what you eat.

Photo courtesy of The Goods Mart.

Written by Alysha Malik.