Super Foodtown: Serving the Bronx

Bruckner Boulevard store undergoes significant reconstruction.

Change is the one certainty in the world and, in New York City’s borough of the Bronx, Super Foodtown has evolved to continue serving a middle-class community that has become more diverse over time, and still values quality fresh food.

Managing partner Harry Celentano says the resident population has shifted over time, but the mixed community still includes a significant proportion of demographics that arrived early in the neighborhood, particularly Italian, Latino, Black and Asian populations.

To serve the community, the operation on Bruckner Boulevard has undergone significant change over the 21 years it has been in operation. However, the biggest change happened just before it adopted the Super Foodtown banner. Before that, the store was a 10,000-square-foot A&P.

Super Foodtown arrived as a partnership that saw potential for the site, but also shortcomings that had to be addressed, Celentano says. To that end, the partners initially closed the store and invested in reconstruction for more than two years, resulting in a higher-profile, airier space, as opposed to the low-slung A&P store environment.

Although a few visible structural remnants remain, such as a lower ceiling in part of the store, Celentano says the reconstruction basically “knocked it down to the ground and added on.”

MAKING IT EASY TO SHOP

Although ethnicity is often an issue in New York food retailing, Celentano says certain trends have an almost universal effect. One is convenience.

Celentano says the store has experienced increased demand for fresh cuts and other convenience items. Once a rarity, now they have a conspicuous space in the store, supported by employees who have a workspace where they cut fruits and vegetables on an ongoing basis, and the fresh-cut assortment ranges broadly from broccoli to watermelon.

Celentano says that whatever cut fruits and vegetables customers want, the store is willing to provide wherever it can.

Fresh-cuts and convenience items designed for quick and easy preparation can be more expensive by the ounce than raw products, but, for a lot of busy consumers, there is no real trade-off.

“Pineapple, we have it chopped up because that’s the way the consumer is heading,” says Celentano. “Years ago, there was none of this.”

Cut fruit, even though it might be a more expensive purchase — making it better for store finances — can be economical for the shopper. “If you’re not eating an entire cantaloupe, the other half goes into the garbage,” he says.

Those consumer trends are what led Super Foodtown to devote time and effort to processing their own cut fruits and vegetables, says Celentano. “You have to change with the times.”

As customer preferences have changed, Super Foodtown has also integrated vegetarian and vegan grocery products into the produce section to make them more prominent to consumers who typically spend a higher-than-average proportion of their in-store time in the produce section.

“We brought in all these organic and vegan products,” says Celentano. “We integrated it into the produce.”

In doing so, the store has created a dedicated presentation that, for vegan and organic shoppers, is a convenient destination for what they need in their own neighborhood.

THE LOOK

Produce is adjacent to the store entrance, and conspicuous in the department is the space devoted to cold cases, which are arranged along both sides and the rear. Also conspicuous is the mix of bulk and convenience products, and not just fresh-cuts and packaged salads.

The floor displays lead with packages of potatoes and tote-bag apples and pears identified as produced in New York. Bananas and Latin specialties follow on one side of the display, with citrus and melons following on the other.

It’s noteworthy that one high-profile floor display near the rear of the store is devoted exclusively to bananas, with special signage above, suggesting just how popular the fruit is with Super Foodtown customers.

Another floor display, headed up with 5-pound bags of red and russet potatoes, continues on the one side with bagged, bulk and onions. The other side proceeds with avocados, mangos, and tomatoes in various forms, including slicing bulk and clamshell cherry, finally ending with another convenience-oriented product, bagged mini potatoes.

The range of store-cut and wrapped tray vegetables has a high-profile place in a cold case on the back wall of the produce department, intermingled with bagged whole apples and near packaged greens. The case also includes jars of gourmet pickles that require refrigeration, bagged sauerkraut, mushrooms, bagged celery and packaged fruit.

A cold case against the exterior wall opens with greens and gives way to fresh vegetables, much in bulk but some bagged, including whole and baby carrots. The colorful display includes bulk eggplant, yellow and green squash and bell peppers. Next, clamshell vegetables and kale, with Latin specialties, including tomatillos, habanero, and poblano peppers, are on the shelf just below.

Cut fruit in tubs is in a cold case that lines the far side of the department. Nearby are clamshell salads, salad dressings, bagged and loose apples, pear, and bagged grapes, as well as branded single-serve fresh fruit cups. The store also merchandises berries in the immediate vicinity.

A final section of the case houses an array of beverages, pacing the trend seen in other produce sections — placement of juices and other drinks that have health associations.

Among its produce suppliers, Super Foodtown buys from C&S, D’Arrigo, and other local wholesalers, including a specialist in Latin items, says Celentano. The ability to use multiple suppliers, which may be easier in the Bronx given the proximity of the Hunts Point Market, allows Super Foodtown to focus on quality and price.

FACT FILE

Super Foodtown of Throgg’s Neck, Bronx
2945-65 Bruckner Blvd. and Crosby Ave., Bronx, NY 10461
718-379-7100
www.foodtown.com/stores/foodtown-of-throggs-neck-bronx