Name: Angela Bozo
Age: 29
Location: Portland, Ore.
Education: B.A. in Women’s Studies, University of Redlands, Calif.
Job Title: Demo merchandiser, New Seasons Market
What She Does: Angela oversees and coordinates the demo departments at each of the nine New Seasons Markets, a local grocer that focuses on customer service and shopper interaction by hosting daily events, tastings, and demos at grocery-store locations. She helps conceive and host daily demos to introduce new grocery-store products to customers, and also plans more elaborate weekend tasting events for her stores to keep the community involvement at the markets going strong.
How She Got Her Gig: Angela grew up with a restaurateur for a father, so she has a long relationship with food and food service. Postcollege, she decided to enter the industry and got a job working as a foodie for Central Market in Dallas. As a foodie, Angela worked demos and provided customer service, all the while learning the culinary skills that would benefit her future career. “There I worked with an accomplished chef, who taught me proper knife skills, sauce 101, and basically provided a modified culinary school education,” she says. In 2003, she moved to Portland, joined the New Seasons team, and began working her way up through the ranks to her current position.
Loving Food…and People: In Angela’s field, it’s important not only to love working with food but also to enjoy interacting with people. “I would be more than happy working a phone answering the question ‘What should I eat for dinner tonight?’ every day,” says Angela. “Not all people are cut out for intensive customer-service-oriented careers. Most people can do it for a while, but they have a definite shelf life.”
Scattered Hours: Like most women working in the service or food industry, Angela’s days are varied. “I have to balance time on the computer—answering e-mails, processing paperwork, working on our recipe files—with time spent in the stores as well as being present at New Seasons Market events.” Between her office work and events and demos, Angela spends about 45 to 60 hours a week on the job.
A Pragmatic Approach: When Angela is brainstorming demo ideas, she has to make sure they appeal to the average customer and that they are practical for the staff to pull off. “It is often a challenge to make something accessible to all of our customers,” she says. “For example, gluten-free is a huge and growing section of the grocery-shopping populace. Does it make sense to have a gluten-free event? Probably. Is it actually pragmatic? Not really, because we don’t have a dedicated facility where we could ensure that nothing cross-contaminated, and this is a very important health issue.” So Angela instead steers event focuses toward educational opportunities that are balanced and appeal to customers without alienating anyone.
This Job’s for You if: To succeed in Angela’s field, you need to be willing to make a career out of interacting with people in a grocery-store setting, have a true love for cooking, and be able to read and write recipes for store demos and events. It also helps to be organized, patient, respectful, and a good self-marketer. Finally, if you desire a leadership role like Angela has, you must have strong opinions and be willing to stand up for them in front of your staff. “It doesn’t matter if it is a good opinion, per se. It just matters that you can take a side and be willing to put yourself out there.”
