A Family Affair - Compassionate Business with Palmetto Running Company
Palmetto Running Company is an organisation that is not so much a chain of stores as a set of values; values that inspire its tight-knit community to question how they live, work and, of course, run in a more conscious, connected manner. I sat down with Christian Fyfe and Keri Straughn, the brother and sister driving force behind Palmetto, to find out how they are changing the way we think about retail, both in South Carolina and beyond.
‘Best Running Store in America’. It hits you in clean, bold typeface on Palmetto Running Company’s landing page. You’d be forgiven for curbing your enthusiasm: we live in an age of hyperbole and recent months, in America in particular, have done nothing to dampen the emotive rhetoric that overloads our nervous systems on a daily basis. In Palmetto’s case, however, this is not an aspirational claim but a fact: in 2023, they were named store of the year at the prestigious annual show ‘The Running Event’ in Texas. It’s an internationally recognised and nationally coveted award.
For Palmetto, this title is not about adding to the trophy cabinet, it’s an affirmation of teamwork and that their mission to make a difference in people’s lives is working. It's an incentive to do more and do better for the community that they provide for, not hike their prices and plan for an early retirement.
It is, after all, the community that nominated them for the award in the first place, something that Keri is quick to acknowledge: “It’s the best feeling in the world; we have really made a footprint in our community and are known for the fact that everything we touch is mindful of both people and planet.”
‘Service’ is another word that crops up a lot in their conversation: they may be ‘the best’, but they are not elitist. Rather, they are constantly interrogating what it means to be of service to their fellow humans. “I think, for us, a big mission is to really set a better example of what an honest business owner can be,” Christian explains. “We see Palmetto as a vehicle for change, not just to sell shoes. Whether it's through the products we carry or the events that we put on, we're inspiring thoughtfulness when it comes to both purchasing and then what you do with the products after you're finished with them.”
Palmetto’s origins are not, in fact, in sales but in a running club. When Christian and Keri were college age, their father, Rob Fyfe, started getting into distance running. In New York, it was easy to connect with other runners but, when he and his wife relocated to South Carolina, he found that, although people lived active lifestyles, there were no running clubs. His answer: start one himself. Runners need kit and, as the popularity of the club grew, so did the demand for sport-specific apparel. In 2011, Palmetto Running Company was born with Rob setting up shop in his new hometown of Bluffton. A year later, Christian, by then a keen runner himself, moved down to help grow the family business. He would be joined a couple of years later by Keri, who, with her artistic background, took over marketing and design. It wasn’t long before a second store followed, this time on nearby Hilton Head Island.
For Christian, running has always been primarily about both the mental and physical benefits, an attitude that has become the bedrock of what Palmetto preaches as a company: the wins are what running gives you on a day-to-day basis, not the podiums and race medals (although those are to be applauded). Likewise, Keri is not a runner herself but has brought her holistic appreciation of movement to the team, organising women’s only yoga classes and championing the creation of safe spaces that encourage people to get outside and connect with the beautiful landscape around them. “I feel like, through our partnership, we bring three different perspectives to the business. Our dad is sixty-five now and is the true old school runner, having grown up during the boom of running. Christian is really approaching it from the mental aspect, and I’m more about the everyday, active lifestyle. It's been really inspiring to watch us grow and reach different communities together,” she explains.
A big part of building trust and rapport with their customers, for Christian and Keri, is about signposting inclusivity from the outset, which makes their events as important as the in-store experience. “We want to make running as accessible as possible and not intimidating. At our events, we have a mix of people from all walks of life and all different ages, so elementary school aged kids to people in their eighties; it's very cool!” Keri enthuses. It is this very human side of the business that showcases another pillar of the company: authenticity. Whether it’s meeting people for the first time at an event or welcoming them into one of the stores, the team, who are deliberately recruited for the fact that they are not all elite ultramarathon runners, are constantly actively connecting with prospective customers and ensuring that they know what Palmetto is about and that they can come in, not just to get help with trainers, but to also be inspired to push themselves to discover their unique potential.
Sustainability being at the heart of Palmetto, how then do they use this influence to nudge people towards more environmentally friendly consumer decisions? Christian and Keri agree that it’s a dialogue that starts long before a customer walks through the door; it begins with the store’s dynamic relationships with brands. “Since we started our Eco-Initiative back in 2019, it used to just be this small portion of our store with little tags on products to say that they were made responsibly,” Keri explains. “Now we're at a point where everything in our store has a sustainability story to it. That’s not only a testament to the partners that we have, but also to how far the industry has come in that time. Working with brands like hylo, who already have that focus at the very core of what they do, is really inspiring for us.” They are also not averse to holding brands accountable and are hitting back at the narrative that sustainability comes at a higher price point. Keri is passionate as she reflects on those trickier conversations: “Shopping responsibly doesn't mean that you have to pay more, and we try to use our voice as much as possible to speak up for that. It’s the brands that are choosing to make shoes in a more climate conscious manner and they should take ownership of that; it’s not the consumer's responsibility.”
“We don’t mind being the squeaky wheel,” Christian laughs.
Ultimately, making informed choices is about education and Christian reflects on how they view their stores as educational spaces to share knowledge and good practices. “I like to believe that, when people leave one of our stores, they've not only had a great experience in terms of getting the products they were looking for, but they have also learned about those products and are inspired to do more right.” Education definitively isn't about forcing sustainability on people and Palmetto’s approach is very much about calling people in, not calling them out. “We don't push the stuff because none of us are perfect; we're all on this journey with sustainability, and we are only at the beginning as a society,” Christian reinforces as he explains their sales strategy. “We lead with a quality product and ensure that what we are selling is hitting the customer’s specific needs, then we close out by explaining that a shoe might be made with a percentage of bio-based material or be fully recyclable. Who’s going to say no to that if all the other things have been achieved?”
Sales, it would seem, are not therefore incompatible with climate awareness, at least not at Palmetto, and the other piece of the puzzle, leading and living by example, brings the shopping experience full circle. When people attend a Palmetto event, they are wearing the company’s thoughtfully curated product, whilst directly experiencing the benefits of being able to move and run through a beautiful natural environment. It raises the question of how they might then preserve that landscape, and Palmetto is quick to provide the answers.
All Palmetto’s events are not-for-profit and give directly back to community-driven charities. Keri’s voice is warm as she describes the partnerships, “We donate profits from our events to local organisations, like our friends at the Outside Foundation or the Sea Turtle Patrol; we want to try to protect this island and the wildlife that's here.” The events are also a chance to model positive behaviours: “Something that we've been doing for a while, through our nonprofit, the Low Impact Alliance, is creating ‘Better Bins’, which is a product recycling centre for people to bring back their shoes, socks, apparel, and nutrition packaging. People are no longer just tossing their old stuff and putting it in the landfill, they're thinking about how they can be turned into something new, whether that be more of the same product or things like playground surfacing.” Keri expands.
Some of the events have a more obvious environmental focus. Monthly ‘plogs’ (pick up and jog) mimic the intentional approach that the store has to meticulous recycling and limitation of plastic-based construction and display materials. Christian explains how, when people join the ‘plogs’, they see the trash that collects along the sandy beaches and realise how simple it is to pick up a wrapper on a run. It’s just a small change in habitual behaviour and being part of a group can sometimes give the push needed to transform that change into a daily practice.
It’s collective action that is, once again, at the heart of why Palmetto’s message is so effective: people feel part of something. Indeed, when you join the running club, which is still, along with Palmetto’s races, run by Christian and Keri’s father, you pledge responsibility and accountability towards other members. It means that, whether it be a Saturday morning shake-out or a Wednesday pub run, everyone feels welcome and included. Likewise, along with embedding sustainable practices into race organisation, Palmetto’s competitions are an opportunity for everyone to shine and be cheered on, whatever distance they are running or place they finish in. “Certainly, people are there that want to win the race and that's awesome; we're there to cheer them on and are so psyched when they come across the line,” Christian clarifies. “But we also want to make sure that the emphasis is on people pushing their own limits and feeling that sense of accomplishment. There's nothing better than that, and we love being a part of it.”
It’s an ethos that extends to Palmetto’s young athlete programme and scholarships, which aim to inspire life-long runners, not track stars that burn bright and then fade out due to injury or dwindling interest. Christian is aware that Palmetto’s investment in younger generations is also reflective of the changing demographic of the community at large: “Our community kind of started as more of a retirement area and, over the last decade, people have been moving down to be with their parents and then also having kids of their own here. It means that we’ve now got three generations coming into our stores and they're all finding something that's right for them at that point in their life. To be able to encourage people to continue their passion, whatever their background or opportunities, is just such a cool part of being able to help provide for our community.” It’s fitting that the application form for Palmetto’s scholarships does not require a list of PBs but, rather, an essay on how running has prepared the applicant for the future.
Palmetto’s own future is very much about sustainable growth. They have a third store opening in Bluffton town centre in mid-September, the construction of which has been something of a family affair: Palmetto’s version of a corporate away day is all the team mucking in and helping in the building process. Once again, the human touch is clearly evidenced in everything they do, right down to the foundations of their buildings.
I finish by asking what running with joy looks like at Palmetto, inspired by one of the pledges required of club members when they sign up. Christian’s answer is, as one might expect, about more than running: “The world is so busy and chaotic that we sometimes just need to take a second to breathe. If our running club can be an opportunity for people to experience that space once a week, that’s awesome. Then, if they can come to us and feel energised to do that more often in their day, seven days a week, I think that life's going to be a lot more joyful for everyone.”
