Trevor Griffin starts his day like any other store manager. He looks over the financials, reviews any outstanding staff issues, and deals with the day-to-day customer service.
He’s the team leader of Whole Foods Cambie location and he says he loves his job because it’s not all about the business.
“It’s about something more.”
Griffin started his career out at Earl’s Restaurant in Vancouver before moving on to the United States to work in restaurant management south of the border.
But it wasn’t long before he felt the pull to come back home to Vancouver.
“At that point it was kind of my transition,” he says. “I was kind of, like, ‘Well, what am I going to do different?’ and [Whole Foods] was kind of a neat fit.”
He says he wanted to find a job that wasn’t all about “making the money.” And Whole Foods met the criteria.
“What they do is they put a lot of money back into the community,” he says. “Whether it would be community support groups or helping out in the community by collecting trash or working at the food bank.”
Griffin uses his creativity everyday at Whole Foods. Whether it’s coming up with recipes, meal ideas, or different approaches to already existing dishes. Griffin is inspired by everything around him.
“You’re watching a movie and something comes up that you see and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea,’ or you see a picture on the internet and it’s like, ‘Wow, that looks awesome let’s try and do that’.”
Whole Foods backs charities like the Whole Planet Foundation.
The grocery store recently finished a month and a half long fundraiser, giving all proceeds to Grameen Bank, an organization that gives microcredit loans to residents in third world countries to help them out of poverty.
“It’s a very minimal amount and [loan recipients] start doing something,” says Griffin. “Whether it’s from building baskets to buying a cow or buying hair so they can create wigs. All sorts of different things.”
Griffin says his favourite part of his job is the team he gets to work with every day.
“The one thing that I was searching for was, kind of, like that family,” he says. “And I never really found it until I came back here.”
He can tell that employees enjoy working at Whole Foods.
“That’s what keeps me going and drives me everyday.”
Whole Foods Cambie location is located on the corner of Cambie and West 8th at 510 W. 8th Ave.
