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Rouses Means Local Farmers by David W. Brown

And though he’s scaled back his farming as he has grown older, he has no intention of stopping. “They treated me right at Rouses from the start. I learned that you have to bring the best.That’s what the people like.” As Tim says, you want to satisfy your customers 100 percent of the time. “That’s the first, most important thing, if you want them to come back. If you’re not satisfying your customers, you’re not going to grow your business. You might get a dollar from them today, but if they aren’t satisfied, they won’t spend that dollar with you again.” And supporting local farmers, supporting local products, cultivating a revered local label and nurturing local entrepreneurs — is how communities grow, and it circles right back to the ethos of Rouses. “We are local,” says Donald Rouse, chairman of Rouses, “and we give back to the community. We work on keeping our stores clean and fresh, keeping our prices as competitive as possible, and keeping a much bigger variety than what a supercenter would carry, with healthier options. We work hard to train our personnel to give the shopping experience that our customers deserve, and that we want to see them have.We love the business and are intense about it. I think it shows in our stores.”

When he founded Rouses Markets, Anthony Rouse wanted to support local farmers, and that’s what he did. That commitment to the community is at the heart of the Rouses store culture to this day. “Really, you’re supporting the community by supporting your local people,” says Tim Acosta, Rouses advertising & marketing director, “because they will come back and support you.” The local farmers bring that same sort of dedication to Rouses produce bins. “I’ve been with ’em 25 years,” says Burton Whitfield, a farmer out of Plaucheville in Central Louisiana, who provides produce to Rouses. “I was raised on a farm and it gets in your blood.” New Year’s in particular is always an exhilarating time for him — one in which, when he’s not harvesting his vegetables and fruits, he’s loading them into his pickup truck and driving them to Rouses Markets. “I used to plant 6,500 cabbages and support four stores: in Houma, Thibodaux, one in Raceland and one in Morgan City.” When the time came — about a week before Christmas — he and his daughters would pick the cabbages, load them up and truck them to fill the bins at the different stores. Years later, his grandkids joined the harvest. “I don’t want to brag and all,” he says, “but when they put my cabbage out there — 300 or 400 heads at a time — it wouldn’t last out there but maybe a day.”

32 MARCH•APRIL 2020