Break Time

At a window seat facing the rain coming down on Broad Street, Amanda spoons broccoli cheddar soup and stabs at a superfood salad. It’s a favorite lunchtime combo for her.
 

Amanda is the receiving manager at Sprouts—the supermarket that opened on south Broad St. late last year. She meets delivery trucks in the back by 6:30 each morning. “Everything that comes in, I go through,” she said.

She’s wearing a black zip-up hoodie, her dark, blue-streaked hair pulled back into a bun. For the last few hours, she has been calling in credits for products that were “out of temp.” “Any refrigerated or frozen items, we have to temp check,” Amanda explains. “If they’re off, we have to refuse.” Sometimes temps impact an entire truck—if it’s just one degree above regulation, the entire shipment gets sent back.

Amanda’s days are hectic—without a receiving team, she’s often working solo. Plus, Sprouts operates on a bigger scale than the small co-ops where she previously worked. “I’m used to stores that do $15,000 in sales per day,” she says. “This store does that just in the dairy department.”

She takes a sip of an energy drink and scrunches her nose. “I won’t do that again,” she says, referring to the drink. She often tries out new products during lunch, many branded as “healthy,” which is a huge part of Sprouts’ mission and marketing.

Amanda’s perspective on these claims? Sprout’s standards aren’t as strict as some of the natural food stores where she’s worked before, she says. “But for people who are transitioning from mainstream grocery stores to more natural foods, I think it does that well—it’s approachable.”

A timer sounds on her iPhone. She sweeps spilled quinoa into a Sprouts bag with a napkin and rushes back to work. 

Author's note: This article and original illustration was published in Edible Philly's Spring '19 issue.