Safeway Boosts Image By Going Local Nationwide

Safeway is taking a local produce promotion nationwide to better establish itself as a leader in fresh food.

According to the company, almost a third of its overall produce presentation comes from local sources, with stores-level assortments ranging from 20 percent in some areas and to as much as 45 percent in California. Geoff White, Safeway group vice president of produce, said in launching the promotion that the company now “will direct our customers to our extensive selection of premium-quality, locally grown produce at competitive prices.”

Shoppers actually can find more local produce on an item basis at a Safeway store than at a typical farmer’s market, Teena Massingill, a Safeway spokesperson said. That will be more obvious around the country, as the supermarket operator develops a local produce promotional program – including store displays and feature advertisements in circulars — at each of the chains it operates. And sometimes more than one, as the company will operate the program separately in its northern and southern division Safeway stores in California to ensure that all the produce in each meets the criteria that local means no more than an eight-hour drive between farm and the location where an item is offered. To emphasize its geographic standard, Safeway will highlight through promotional materials partnerships with local growers such as G&S Farms of Brentwood, Calif., in its Northern California Safeway stores, and Richter Farms of Decatur, Mich., in its Dominick’s stores in and around Chicago.

Safeway has spent vast sums remodeling its supermarkets to the standards of a store prototype it dubbed lifestyle, one that focuses on produce, wine, bakery, meat and other departments where the company can make a gourmet mark and distinguish itself from more mainline supermarkets and supercenters, which mostly means Kroger and Wal-Mart. Produce is particularly important in the effort. Lifestyle produce departments feature lots of Safeway premium private label items under its O Organics and Eating Right brands, abundant displays of the most popular products like tomatoes and conspicuous organics centers.

Yet, while the supermarkets have carried lots of local produce, the products were not given major feature treatment, probably because they weren’t quite as big a deal early in the decade when the lifestyle format was being developed. Local produce has grown in importance recently and food-conscious consumers – those Safeway particularly wants to attract – are looking for them, so the supermarket operator is determined that customers know regionally grown fruits and vegetables are abundantly available at its stores.