In the era of high inflation, the owner of Seaside’s Grocery Outlet finds a way to be successful.

Thinking differently applies to apples – the edible kind, not just the computer brand. The operator of the Seaside Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, Bud Kottman, also thinks differently when it comes to helping consumers buy food.

The Kottmans – Bud partners with his wife Treava – have been independent owners and operators of the Seaside location for about two-and-a-half years. Before that they owned a Grocery Outlet in San Diego for nine. The husband and wife team have a day-to-day life that typically starts around 4am. Early to rise comes with the territory when it comes to retail success. But Grocery Outlet runs on a different model than other grocery stores. And it was different from the beginning.

According to Kottman, the founder of the chain sketched out a deal with food producers on the back of a napkin in 1946. Though the store may not always stock everything that other stores do, they get creative. The dynamics and flexibility of the retail model keep Kottman both busy and excited.

Weekly: Do you have a background in running grocery stores?

Kottman: No. My wife and I were some of the first operators that Grocery Outlet hired who did not have a grocery store background. Half of my life I’ve been in food manufacturing, and the other half has been retail. I love being able to find, source, sell and fix problems for people, but we were actually from the furniture industry. Grocery Outlet will take one out of 30,000 to 40,000 applicants per month.

When they selected us, they asked, “What makes you think we’d be interested in you?” My answer was simple: when you have someone who runs a brand new store and they don’t do well or struggle and they leave, is it because you can’t teach them to cut open a case of corn? Or is it because they don’t have the business acumen?

It must have been an interesting transition.

It’s kind of weird. So when we started with Grocery Outlet, we had to interview with other owners, who either gave us a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Then Corporate asked who we wanted to train us. They were looking for people in the same age and demographic – that kind of thing. And we picked the Seaside store as our training store; the family that owned the Seaside store agreed to train us.

We moved from Topeka, Kansas, sold everything we had, and moved out to Seaside. After we trained, we kind of worked around everywhere, wherever someone needed help – Eureka, L.A., and then a store opened up in San Diego.

How does your store keep food prices affordable?

We can look at an example I like to use. Let’s say there are two grocery warehouse stores like Costco or Sam’s Club on opposite street corners from each other. One of them may come in and say, “I want to take a jar of spaghetti sauce that’s 45 ounces and make it 42 ounces so I can drop the price by 50 cents.” The other grocery store will let that go for about 30 to 45 days before deciding they also want the smaller jar.

Other grocery stores won’t want the smaller container. So the manufacturer will then call Grocery Outlet buyers and offer them the excess 45-ounce containers, rather than throwing them in the landfill which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Grocery Outlet can then fill the containers whenever they need, and this allows the manufacturer to level out production. Grocery Outlet will pay for it when they order it. When you do that, we’ll sell it to you for usually 30 – to 60-percent cheaper. That’s how we keep inflation in check.

What is a typical day like for you?

My wife and I separate our jobs. She likes to get to the store at 4am. Around 4 to 5am, we start ordering our products. We did do all of it ourselves, but now we do mostly the specialty items.

Now there’s more of a community part of it for us so we’re not as wrapped up in the day-to-day – you can actually step out and do some community things. But we continue to greet customers, check people out, bag, do carry-outs, run carts, unload trucks and order product.

Did you learn more on the job or find your own ways to innovate?

This business model works for both. Grocery Outlet has about 550 locations, but they could not have 550 people like me – that would drive them crazy. I think we challenge a lot of the norms by doing things differently.