City Market Offers Great Pay, Excellent Benefits and Meaningful Work

Before Emily Calhoon moved to Burlington in August 2020, she started applying for jobs. Her first choice employer? City Market, Onion River Co-op. Calhoon had worked at grocery co-ops for years in Minneapolis, and appreciated being involved in a Member-owned, mission-driven organization making fresh, local food accessible. But what really tipped the scales to City Market was the health insurance plan.

City Market provides an “excellent” health insurance package that rivals that of any other local employer, Calhoon said. It pays 80 percent of employee medical insurance premiums and also offers dental and vision coverage. Employees are also eligible for life insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage, and spending accounts for medical and dependent care.

The pay is competitive, too. Starting wages for hourly positions range from $15.50 to $21 an hour; a cashier starts at $15.89. The rates are part of a new contract with the employee union that went into effect July 1.

But Calhoon, a produce buyer, said money isn’t the only thing that matters to her. “The amount that City Market does for its employees and for its Members is pretty unique,” she said. “There are a lot more benefits that aren’t quite related to pay or health care that I get at City Market that I never expected to get from work.”

If you or someone you know is looking for a career in the retail or food service industry in the greater Burlington area, City Market is hiring.

Exciting Work, Unexpected Perks

City Market celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023; it got its start as a grocery buying club in 1973. The Onion River Co-op spent its first 30 years in the city’s Old North End before moving to its current downtown location in 2002, adding a second South End location in 2017.

Calhoon started as a produce stocker in the South End store, then quickly climbed the ranks to produce team lead. A couple months ago, she was promoted to produce buyer — an example of City Market’s commitment to employees’ professional growth.

Her favorite thing about her job is that she gets to learn about and interact with Vermont growers such as Hank Bissell of Lewis Creek Farm in Starksboro and Silas Doyle-Burr of Last Resort Farm in Monkton, and help their produce reach consumers’ plates.

“I’m very passionate about local food and local fruits and vegetables,” she said. “I love being an intermediary between the farm and the customer. I feel like I’m the middle link between the people that grow food and the people that are consuming it, which I think is an important job.”

She also appreciates the 20 percent discount she gets on all City Market purchases, and the extra $20 a month reimbursement she receives for biking to work instead of driving. She used it recently when her tires popped.

Another bonus: City Market workers have access to free and discounted passes to local museums, yoga classes, rock climbing and Vermont state parks. Calhoon has taken advantage of the park pass and said she’d like to use more.

But other aspects of the job are just as valuable as the financial benefits, Calhoon said. Most of her closest friends are current or former coworkers, she said. And interaction with customers is a highlight of her work days, she said, especially when they ask her how to cook with produce they discover in her department.

When the Co-op helped promote Vermont Chicory Week in October, shoppers wondered “what to do with their head of radicchio,” Calhoon said. She suggested using it in a brothy beans-and-greens dish, or fresh in a salad with parmesan, dates and nuts.

“It makes me more excited to come to work, especially in this position where I’m talking to farmers, ordering the food for the store,” she said. “It makes me more excited that I get to order beautiful local produce, that I know a lot of care went into growing that food.”

401(k) Match, Parental Leave and More

Shawn Flanigan, the Co-op’s human resources generalist, enumerates a few bennies that Calhoon left out: The Co-op provides a 6 percent match of employee contributions to its 401(k) plan. Employees accrue flexible paid time off that they can take for any reason, Flanigan said.

As part of a new contract with the employee union, City Market added paid family and parental leave, along with an increase to existing bereavement leave and compassionate paid time off. The Co-op also boosted the number of paid volunteer hours that workers can use to donate their time to a community organization and doubled the maximum amount of an employee’s charitable contribution to a local nonprofit that the Co-op will match, from $100 to $200.

“We really do want our employees to reach out and form connections with those different community partners,” Flanigan said.

City Market also holds a Wellness Adventure each month with a selection of activities. Employees who participate track their progress with a scorecard and check off activities they’ve completed, then turn in their score for incentives, typically gift cards for local businesses.

“I’ve heard stories that folks have financed their holiday shopping just on Wellness Adventure points,” Flanigan said. “We’re very much about engaging folks and then being able to spread that right back out into the circles” of the community.

City Market workers also can take any of the stores’ classes for free and learn to ferment vegetables, bake their own bread or prepare one of the Mosaic of Flavor dishes introduced by instructors from one of the local New American or ethnic communities.

And every day, they work surrounded by the stores’ bounty. “If I forget my lunch,” Flanigan said, “I always know that I’m going to have the best food available, ever.”

Employees Have a Voice in Leadership

City Market’s commitment to the community is a reflection of its ownership structure. Unlike traditional supermarkets, the Co-op is owned by the people who shop there. “It is a grocery business,” said Kristina Sweet, president of the Co-op’s Board of Directors, “but it’s a business that’s owned by over 12,000 community members.”

When the store makes a profit, the Members share it. This ensures that the Co-op can remain focused on its mission, rather than on short-term profits. “Part of the mission of the Co-op — or what we at the Co-op call our ‘global ends’ — is really to serve our community, grow the economy, and support the local and regional food system, as much as it is to provide all of our customers, including Members, with a great place to shop and affordable groceries,” Sweet said.

Employees help the Co-op maintain that commitment. Two of the Co-op’s Member-elected Board Members are former employees, one who just joined in January, which gives the Board insight into the experiences of workers at the Co-op. Current employees who are Members are also eligible to serve on the Board — and often do.

“They definitely bring great questions,” Sweet said. “We really like to have a diverse mix of Board Members in terms of their background.”

In the Co-op environment, workers can learn about and pursue opportunities in all aspects of a retail business, as well as the unique features of City Market: customer service, supply chain, kitchen operations, marketing, education/classes and community outreach. There is a wide range of positions available, from cashiers and deli staff to maintenance and marketing.

City Market supports employees like Calhoon who are eager to take on more responsibility, said Board President Sweet. “There’s a real commitment at the Co-op to allowing people to grow when they’re ready to grow and to promote from within and provide those development opportunities for folks,” she said. “A lot of people in management at the Co-op started in those entry-level positions.”

Candidates can find all of City Market’s job openings on its website and apply there or walk in with an application. Each Co-op department — not the general human resources team — reviews the candidates applying for work in that area, Flanigan pointed out. “There is a person who has a lot of experience with that position who is actually going to be talking to you.”

Most of Burlington’s retail businesses employ local college students who come and go, creating high turnover. City Market, by contrast, tends to see those workers return to the Co-op after their summer breaks, Sweet said. Some of them are its most dedicated workers, and they get the stability of a steady paycheck, as well as a decent wage and other perks, in return.

Also unique to City Market: the most engaged, passionate customers around. Calhoon said she especially enjoys seeing the fruits of her labor — literally — in their enthusiasm.

“One of the things that surprised me the most about moving to Vermont and starting at City Market,” she said, “is how much people here care about their food.”

This article was commissioned and paid for by City Market, Onion River Co-op.