Tailored approach

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This article was published 19/11/2016 (3345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Near the front door of Save-On-Foods’ flagship Winnipeg store — one of three that officially opened in the city today — sits a gleaming, stainless-steel display case featuring a variety of hot, fresh perogies.

Potato-and-bacon-flavoured perogies may not raise many eyebrows but blueberry perogies? Or the apple pie, cinnamon and sugar perogies? Now that’s a different story.

The latter two flavours are the brainchild of John Chapman, director of restaurant for the Vancouver-based grocery chain, which is a member of the Jim Pattison Group of companies. It’s hard to tell who is more proud of his creations — Chapman or company president Darrell Jones.

“You’ve got to try them,” Jones tells members of the local media. “They’re out of this world!”

Friday morning, Jones and a host of other Save-On-Foods executives gave about 50 members of the local media a tour of the company’s new 65,000-square-foot store in the Northgate Shopping Centre on McPhillips Street. The purpose of the tour was to let them experience first-hand what all the fuss is about — the company has been on an multi-media advertising blitz all week in Winnipeg, trumpeting the store openings.

Jones said the Northgate store is the only one in Save-On-Foods’ fast-growing retail chain — the company has more than 150 outlets in Western Canada — to feature a hot perogy bar. To the best of his knowledge, it’s the only grocery store in North America that has one, he added.

“But hey, we’re in Winnipeg. Is there anywhere else but Winnipeg that we would have a perogy bar?” he said in reference to the city’s large Ukrainian community.

The hot perogy bar is a reflection of Save-On-Foods’ approach to grocery retailing, which is to sell products tailored to the tastes of the shoppers in each community.

In addition to the perogy bar, the Northgate store features an Asian kitchen boasting barbecued duck and pork, soya chicken and dim sum. It has an International Market that features more than 6,000 products from countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Greece, South Asia, South Africa and Mexico.

There’s also a multimillion-dollar commissary that produces smoked meat, deli meat, pasta and other products for the company’s three stores in the city. They include a 38,800-square-foot outlet in Bridgwater Forest and a 37,000-square-foot store at 850 St. James St.

Jones said the company took a tailored-to-the-market approach with most of its other stores in Western Canada — but not to the extent it did in Winnipeg, especially with the Northgate store.

“This is the nicest store I think we’ve ever built,” he said. “This is truly a new concept that we’re testing with the people in Winnipeg. We’ll see how it does, but I think you’ll see (us doing) something like this in other major cities, too.”

He noted that when the company held an outdoor news conference and pancake breakfast about 18 months ago to announce its plans to enter the Winnipeg market, it asked the nearly 2,000 people in attendance to write down what they’d like to see in the company’s three new Winnipeg stores.

“We received hundreds of suggestions… and pretty much everything those people asked for we put into the stores, particularly the Northgate store because it’s large enough.”

He noted, for example, the other two stores don’t have as big a selection of international food, and don’t have a perogy bar or Asian kitchen.

Save-On-Foods hopes to win over shoppers with a combination of traditional and tailored-to-the-community grocery products. Its shopping service allows customers to place their order online and either pick it up later the same day or have it delivered to their home the following day.

It also vows to beat prices at other stores. It says it will match the advertised prices of its direct competitors — Sobeys, Canada Safeway and Real Canadian Superstore — on the 1,100 most frequently purchased products.

“In today’s world, if you don’t take care of what the customer wants, heaven help you because they’ll go somewhere else,” Jones said.

Save-On-Foods has said it plans to open 12 stores in Winnipeg and an undetermined number in other urban centres in the province. Its arrival turns up the heat in a competitive marketplace, featuring Walmart, Costco, Sobeys, Safeway, Real Canadian Superstore and Red River Co-op, as well as discount competitors such as Giant Tiger and No Frills.

The firm hired about 1,000 people for its city stores.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca