I read about it online at the Philadelphia Business Journal's website. I often search for and find things about our community there way before hearing about it other wise.
The url is http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2003/03/24/story8.html
They ask you to create a free login before you read articles, so I'll paste the article below for those who don't want to bother.
Anthony
Fresh Grocer delivers goods with two new Phila. stores
Peter Van Allen Staff Writer
An Upper Darby-based grocery chain that has mined urban and older suburban markets has two more stores in the offing for Philadelphia.
Next week, Fresh Grocer will break ground on a 51,000-square-foot supermarket at 56th and Chestnut streets. Meanwhile, in North Philadelphia, the company earlier this month signed a deal to open a 42,000-square-foot store in Progress Plaza Shopping Center, which was developed by a prominent minister and is still mutually owned by his congregation.
"We approached [Fresh Grocer]," said Wayne Snyder, chairman of Kravco, the company that is redeveloping Progress Plaza for its owners. "The size is appropriate for what they need and they've proven they know how to serve a community of university students as well as the general community."
Fresh Grocer, which is owned by Patrick Burns and Mike Ranier, has been a focal point in another urban market, at 40th and Walnut streets near the University of Pennsylvania. That store, which opened three years ago, garners $20 million a year in sales and has helped transform a corner once dominated by fast-food restaurants and discount stores.
The 40th and Walnut store, which is open 24 hours a day, buzzes with activity around the clock. At lunch, people clog the prepared-food section. At night, the mezzanine-level cafe is filled with students studying and socializing. Late night, as the prepared foods are marked down for quick sale, another crowd gathers.
"There are people everywhere," Burns said. "Christmas day, the mezzanine was packed — with students sticking around for the holidays, with people from the neighborhood.
"We were hoping for a meeting place for people from West Philadelphia, Penn and Rittenhouse Square. People shop three times a week and they appreciate that we're open 365 days, 24/7."
Fresh Grocer specializes in prepared foods and organic foods but also more traditional fare. It combines the prepared foods of a chain like Food Source with the organic foods of a Whole Foods, while still offering standard supermarket fare like Pop Tarts and Fritos.
"We're perishables-oriented," said Burns. "We have one of the largest meat departments and prepared foods. Whole Foods does a great job with all-organic food. We also have organic but also traditional products like Tide and toothpaste."
For the store at 56th and Chestnut, Burns said the offerings will include a larger fresh-meat department. He said that's what the community there wanted.
Burns said the Fresh Grocer model is working well enough that he plans to convert three other stores in his holdings to Fresh Grocer. The markets, which now bear the Great Valu flag, are in Upper Darby, Drexel Hill and Wilmington and would bring the total number of stores to six.
At Progress Plaza, Fresh Grocer also needed to buy into serving both a diverse community and working with the shopping center's active, involved ownership. The shopping center was developed in 1968 by Rev. Leon Sullivan, who asked members of his Zion Baptist Church to invest $360 apiece. Today, Progress Investment Associates Inc. has several hundred shareholders — all of whom had their say in which supermarket was chosen, Snyder said.
On North Broad, Fresh Grocer will draw on students from Temple University as well as residents from nearby communities.
"It will have the same feel [as the 40th and Walnut store]. It has to have a quality feel," said Snyder of Kravco. "We looked at a variety of stores and were approached by several discount stores. But that's not what the community wanted."
Progress Plaza store fell well short of the 50,000 to 60,000-square-foot minimum many supermarket chains require.
"For large retailers, it's often difficult because of the real estate requirements. They also face higher cost of labor, unions, cost of transportation," said Bob Vosburgh, an editor at Supermarket News in New York. "Small urban grocers are a small piece of the [supermarket industry]. However, in urban markets, they're very viable because they can market to a neighborhood, rather than a state or a region. They can really tailor to the market."
Fresh Grocer has, in fact, done just that, said Burns. Progress Plaza store, at 42,000-square-feet, contains about 12,000 square feet more than Fresh Grocer has at 40th & Walnut, but 9,000 square feet less than that of 56th and Chestnut.
"Instead of being a cookie-cutter supermarket," Burns said, "we try to cater to what their needs are."
In a message dated 3/31/2003 10:33:18 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I missed this announcement. Can anyone tell me more? When is it scheduled
to open? Will it be similar in terms of merchandise and price to the store
on 40th and Walnut?
