Latest from Bill Penzey

I hope you watched the news video we linked to in Wednesday’s email. Based on the heartfelt thanks I received from so many of you it holds a great deal of hope for our times. Our Minneapolis store, like others in the Uptown area, suffered broken windows in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. This led to stores being boarded up with a whole lot of plywood which was bleak. Then something kind of wonderful happened. As some pretty outstanding graffiti started showing up the Uptown Association quickly encouraged a bunch more by handing out $100 for supplies to local artists. The results have been stunning. Stop now and watch the video, you will be glad you did.

The artist who did our window boards, in addition to an emotional When Doves Cry-inspired piece, incorporated our Embrace Hope image in his work as well. I found seeing the art that Jeri and our kids created at our kitchen table (where I’m writing this) taking on a new life as part of a community coming together to heal from the pain of police racial violence overwhelming. From your comments after our last email the tears from seeing this in the video are not only in my eyes. For Cooks, this really is what it is all about.

Our thanks to Anton and the rest of the artists, The Uptown community association and the local Fox affiliate that did brilliant work on their news video. Local Foxes aren’t national Fox; they really aren’t.



The efforts of everyone here to reimagine the way we pick and ship orders in the time of the Coronavirus and the huge surge in online ordering it has set in motion are now paying off. Orders have been just flowing out our doors these past few weeks to the point where we are actually almost all caught up. With us still a week behind our plan was to hold off on promotions until next weekend. But with the impact Embrace Hope is having it seems to make sense to get more of these out in the world as soon as possible. So, through Tuesday, free $9.95 value Embrace Hope pins with any $10 purchase!

To get your free pin just visit penzeys.com and enter your order for touchless store pickup or for direct shipping to you. After you’ve reached $10 in spending enter the code America at checkout. It’s easy. And no need to place the pin in your basket, the code will do that for you and for free.

And sorry about the “with $10 purchase.” Back in the before-times of early January we would have just given out the pins for free to anyone who showed up because this is one of those things that shouldn’t be about money. But with us only doing touchless pickup orders in the stores and all the stores closed on Sundays, I fear a flat-out free offer would have instantly gridlocked the stores' pickup slots and would have almost certainly guaranteed a lack of social distancing. Sorry.

But then there is that $10 and the thought of what we could do with that. I am so gladdened by so many business leaders speaking out against racial injustice even if some seem a little late getting on the field. If NASCAR wants to be shocked, SHOCKED! to find they’ve been promoting a wee spot of Confederacy I will gladly be shocked right with them. And if the NFL wants to do a victory dance for being the one sport brave enough to give Colin Kaepernick the platform to start all this I won’t throw a flag for excessive celebration. America is all about redemption. It’s not who you were, it’s who you are. Let’s help and encourage every business to become a force for good.

Still, in seeing the new arrivals standing in support of those facing racism, and some even brave enough to risk losing sales to the less than one percent of Americans who openly identify as white supremacists, I have to say this alone will not be enough to bring the change we need. Donations to those facing racism are great and welcome, but as long as only those on the receiving end of racism pay its costs it will be with us forever. It’s only when those actively creating racism feel the pressure of being called out for their cruelty that there can be any honest hope for change. It is here where I think Penzeys can make a difference.

At the heart of cooking is the truth that when we care about others the future becomes a better place. There is little more uncaring and more damaging to all our futures than racism. Many who once voted for our president no longer support him and hooray for that. But the fact we have to live with is that the majority of the sixty-three million Americans who voted for an openly “textbook” racist candidate for president want to pretend that there is nothing racist in their actions. As long as we let them pretend, racism isn’t going anywhere.

So long story short. For every Embrace Hope pin we give away with a $10 purchase we are pledging to spend $10 on social media calling out the racism of those supporting this president. We won’t be saying who to vote for or against because that would be campaigning and we don’t do that. All we will be saying is that your vote for this president is an act of racism and that you are doing a very-very un-American thing by doing so. America is dedicated more than any other nation to the notion that all are created equal. It’s time for us to call out all who would undermine this most American of all American values. Please help us in this.

At some point some version of this will be a Facebook post, but for now can you just forward this email to those who might like to see it and possibly put a few more Hamiltons in the pot (he’s on the $10 bill)? Someone in the last week emailed me that as long as Penzeys is still on Facebook we are part of the problem. I get that, I do. Penzeys could be so much better a social media site if we could just find the time. You people sharing your values back and forth? That would change the world. But for now there is Facebook and if you are going to take on racism sometimes you have to go to where it hides in plain sight. Please wish us luck.

And if you have an Embrace Hope pin and have a story of its impact or maybe of a conversation it set in motion please share it to editor@penzeys.com. You've sent a few of these since Wednesday and I would love to share them with our larger audience. Thanks.

And once again please go to penzeys.com, place your order for store pickup or home delivery and with $10 in spending get your free pin of Hope. Just use the code America because that is what this is all about. And if you haven’t yet, watch the Minneapolis news video. It is the hope we all need.


Thanks!

Bill
bill@penzeys.com