Big Y’s World Class Produce

Flagship store sets the standard for exceptional produce retailing.

Springfield, MA-based Big Y Foods Inc. is one of the largest family-owned, independent supermarket chains in New England. The company operates locations throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut, including its Big Y supermarkets, Table & Vine Fine Wines and Liquors, and Big Y Express gas and convenience locations, with over 10,000 employees.

The company was founded in 1936 by brothers Paul and Gerald D’Amour, and the store was named after an intersection in Chicopee, MA, where two roads converge to form a Y.

The company’s Norwood location, acquired in 2016 from Hannaford, is prized as a flagship store, says Adam Hession, director of produce and floral. In 2020, the company announced plans to completely renovate the entire shopping plaza, and knocked down the existing 43,000-square-foot store to build a brand new, state-of-the-art 55,000 square foot Big Y. The new store opened Sept. 22, 2022.

Big Y finds success by focusing on the customer experience, exceptional quality of fresh foods and an expansive variety of local items throughout the store. “Our store offers a bakery, full-service butcher and seafood department,” says Hession. The Kitchen and Deli feature Ready to Heat, Eat or Cook Big Y Quick, Easy Meals, including hand-tossed pizza, available by the slice or whole pie, freshly made sushi, made-to-order subs and paninis.

The No. 1 factor contributing to growth is the store’s people and the customer experience the store teams work hard every day to deliver, explains Hession. “Behind the scenes, our sales teams work to provide exceptional quality, value and variety.”

IMAGE DRIVER

The Norwood store boasts a fresh produce department of approximately 3,700 square feet. “Our fresh produce department in Norwood has grown year over year, and has outpaced the performance of the Norwood total store,” says Hession. “This location, in total, has grown sales year-over-year and has outpaced the performance of our chain results. Produce is among the top contributing departments to sales.”

Produce is extremely important to the store’s philosophy. “With one of our main areas of focus being exceptional quality of fresh foods, our produce and meat departments are the top two departments driving this fresh image,” says Hession. “Our fresh produce departments also lead off in our store’s shopping pattern.”

“We continue to see time-starved customers search for more pre-cut fruits, pre-cut vegetables, and other value-added items.”
— Adam Hession, director of produce and floral Big Y, Norwood, MA

The store offers a wide variety of items, especially in the value-added area. “We continue to see time-starved customers search for more pre-cut fruits, pre-cut vegetables, and other value-added items,” says Hession. “Looking at sales results this year, some key items that stand out in terms of stronger growth include mangos, honey mangos, dragon fruit, papayas, avocados, berries and value-added salads.”

ATTENTION-GRABBING MERCHANDISING

The store uses different merchandising tactics throughout the different selling seasons. “We have a large area in the front of the department for seasonal and sale item merchandising,” says Hession. “We have refrigerated spot cases and endcaps. Our Norwood location has garage doors at the front of the department allowing our fresh produce merchandising to spill out onto the sidewalk and create a farmers market feel. We also use a 36-foot, multi-deck refrigerated wall case for soft vegetables and greens.”

The department’s main merchandising objective is to create large, eye-catching displays that showcase freshness and variety and deliver great value to customers, according to Hession. “As we change our displays weekly, we put our best value items front and center,” he says. “We also try to flash any new seasonal items, local items or variety items to round out what our customer sees at the front of our department. Our departments are remerchandised weekly to support our ad circular full of sale items.”

Big Y tries to give its store teams autonomy to encourage creativity in the merchandising process. “For many of us, merchandising is the most fun part of the job,” says Hession. “We have over 1,000 years of experience in our produce manager ranks. Some of our best merchandising ideas come from our store teams. We utilize bins, crates, endcaps, refrigerated cases, original produce boxes and more, depending on the item or category.”

Merchandising decisions are also made based on holidays and specific selling seasons.

“We make major merchandising changes to support key holidays, including Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas,” says Hession. “Another key factor is selling seasons for certain categories, including apples, citrus, cherries, stone fruit and melons. For each of these categories, there are peak-of-the-season windows when demand spikes, and we try to deliver extensive merchandising plans to meet that demand.”

STRATEGIC SOURCING

Big Y sources from a variety of partners to ensure needs are met, including national and local farms, as well as wholesalers. “Our fresh produce department supports as many local farmers as possible, including Davidian’s Farm from Northborough, MA; Souza Family Farm from Rehoboth, MA; Paquette Farm from Shrewsbury, MA; and hundreds of other local farms throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut,” says Hession.

The company recently expanded its Fresh & Local Distribution Center. “This expansion plan ensures we can buy most items direct from farms, distribute more local variety to all of our stores and have room to grow as we open new stores and invest in existing locations,” says Hession.

“A couple of our key strategic partners for produce sourcing include Driscoll’s Berries and Little Leaf Farms. Having our own DC also affords us the ability to inspect all of the fresh produce we buy before we send anything to our stores. We currently have two full-time produce inspectors.”

Big Y’s partners in the Boston wholesale market are a key component to the chain’s overall sourcing plans, emphasizes Hession. “Many of the items we buy direct take more than a few days to get to us from the supplier,” he says. “If an item is rejected or sells better than expected, we utilize our partners in Boston to recover on those items quicker. We also rely upon the market for unique items that, for a variety of reasons, we don’t have the ability to buy direct.”

Hession explains they look for excellent quality first and then value second. “We are also a proud member of Topco and work with all the Topco members to aggregate sourcing initiatives,” he says. “And, while most items are available throughout the year now, seasonality still varies the quantity of items we source in certain categories.”

FRONT LINE INVOLVEMENT

The store promotes via a weekly circular, everyday savings items, in-store TPRs and more, according to Hession. “We most recently ran a stone fruit sales and merchandising contest that created a lot of excitement, drove large mass displays at the front of our departments and delivered excellent sales results,” he says.

Big Y’s operations, sales and employee services departments have built a robust training program for all levels and positions within produce. “We also have several management development workshops to finetune the leadership skills of our produce managers,” says Hession. “We love getting our produce teams out to a growing region or supplier to learn more directly from the source. Most recently, we had all our produce managers tour the Little Leaf Farms greenhouse in Massachusetts. Several of our produce managers have also been to Driscoll’s in California and Stemilt in Washington.”

The company is committed to making a difference in its communities. “Big Y has provided $250,000 (1 million meals) in financial assistance to area foodbanks, in addition to the healthy surplus food provided on a weekly basis,” says Hession.

Every year, over 1,700 Big Y employees volunteer more than 5,000 hours of community service throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. Big Y has been recognized by Forbes as a Best-in-State Employer in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and in 2023, for both Newsweek’s America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity and for Women.

FACT FILE

Big Y Norwood MA
434 Walpole St., Norwood, MA
Tel: 781-769-0905 | Hours: Daily, 7 a.m.-9 p.m.
www.bigy.com