by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: August 25, 2008

Writing a value assessment of your business is easy if you know what it is and if you have no problems in identifying it. On this note, I am going to write a reverse value assessment. I will explain this proposition of mine. I believe I have been the recipient of a value system that leaves me pleased and grateful to a large conglomerate that, in many people's minds would seem ludicrous. I am not a business person only a writer, but I am confident I can distinguish between a value system and one that sees me only as one of a million others.

What in the world am I talking about? I am talking about value systems that take into consideration the people they serve, one at a time. No two of us are alike, yet there are similarities in our wants and in our needs. When we as a group perceive that there are actually large concerns out there that do care about our singular needs - singular until the many thousands of us are found and counted - we are appreciative.

How can this be? Everyone knows that conglomerates are big soulless corporations made up of a whole bunch of greedy sellers who are interested in us only as consumers. True. Except when they go home at night they morph back into a regular person with likes and dislikes and needs and problem the same as the rest of us. In other words they turn into consumers.

This is what I believe happened when a new Kroger store in Huntington WV (Out on Route 60 between downtown Huntington and the Barboursville Mall) stocked one whole shelf full of gluten-free cereal. They somehow must have known how longingly I have walked the aisle of their store searching for a cereal; any kind of a cereal that I could eat. Nothing could be found. I was so desperate that about three years ago, maybe longer, I called and asked if a certain rice cereal was wheat free. It was not. Although basically it was rice the coloring or preparaton method had tainted it with wheat.

I was impressed with the careful and attentive way they addressed my query and my concerns. The person I talked to on the phone said she would ask the nutrition expert and have her call me back. She did. She seemed genuinely sorry that I was disappointed. I simply stopped looking and learned how to change my breakfast eating habits. Until yesterday that s. My daughter who is always looking out for me took me to a new Kroger store that had all kinds of gluten-free food.

I was pleased but not overjoyed. Another store close by where I live have gluten-free flour and sometimes pasta

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