Winn Dixie’s New Concept Store Is A Winner

Re-positioning to regain momentum is a daunting task for any retailer.  When Ian McLeod, president and CEO of Southeastern Grocers, Winn-Dixie's parent company began to look for industry success clues to build upon he gravitated from a category management regiment to a food merchant skill-set and according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® it’s working. 

Winn Dixie’s new concept store has incorporated and integrated the ‘halo of better for you’ to edify it’s brand promise of quality, fresh, made-to-order, organic, and local food.  As regular followers of Foodservice Solutions® team know fresh and local trumps organic and sustainable everywhere every day.  

The new Winn Dixie store strikes a balance between legacy brand attributes and a consumer relevant brand promise of fresh, quality, and value that will resonate with consumers today.  McLeod stated that “This store provides us with an opportunity to redefine what Winn-Dixie can provide for its customers in a contemporary, friendly and exciting in-store environment focused on stunning quality fresh food, specialty stores-within-stores and very competitive prices,”. We agree and think they did a much better job with this store than Kroger did with its new concept store Main & Vine. 

Ian McLeod is much more a food merchant than a category accountant. McLeod focuses on the customer according to our team at Foodservice Solutions®.  One important example is how the grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh food is all located at the front of the store, so that the quality made-to-order Grab-N-Go food can be fresh food fast. 

Winn Dixie’s new concept team did an excellent job incorporating the ‘halo of better for you’ into the brand messaging everywhere in the store.  They clearly understood how value plays key role in communicating with customers and growing competitive forces. 

Winn Dixie’s ability to build-in a consumer interactive participatory feel will be a corner stone to its future success.   McLeod said the store was designed to emphasize freshness, quality, value and the “sense of something cooking in the kitchen,” referring to the on-site food preparation.

That ‘sense of something cooking in the kitchen’ expands the ‘halo’ of freshness throughout the store. McLeod also expanded freshness by partnering with innovative startups like, Eat Fresco, for Grocerant Solutions. Eat Fresco sells restaurant quality prepared meals that are vacuum sealed to lock in freshness. Challenging yesterday's frozen dinner model, its food is never frozen, made locally and utilize all natural and organic ingredients. Eat Fresco meals are ready to eat in under two minutes they are delicious, portable, and convenient and recommended by our own Grocerant Guru®.

This new Winn Dixie is empowering for employees who can drive the consume interactivity and participatory feel as they  smoke meats; bake breads, cook pizzas and pastries; fry mini-doughnuts; roll sushi; and even age fresh meats to customer specifications in the butcher area inviting customer customization and personalization each hallmarks of grocerant niche success. 

The new concept Winn Dixie has fresh made-to-order coffee.  Customers can drink the coffee while shopping, thanks to new shopping cart coffee cup holders. It’s a quality experience to be sure at a price that consumers with embrace. Here are some examples:

■ Beef brisket smoked in house. (Burnt ends sandwich, $5.)

■ Pizza made in house, cooked there or take it home and bake.

■ A machine that fries mini-doughnuts. Children get a free doughnut, which seems like an unfair business practice.

McLeod the food merchant understands that the consumer is dynamic not static. This new concept store was built to last by being built to evolve.  Currently Winn Dixie plans to remodel about 50 stores in the next 12 months, reevaluate and then remodel more. 

Success does leave clues and Winn Dixie picked up all of the right clues with this new concept store.  Millennials are willing to try different brands and our Grocerant Guru® believes that Winn Dixie has hit the perfect balance in value, quality, service, and freshness with this concept store that highlights grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food. 

The grocerant niche mix & match meal component platform is the New Normal in retail foodservice. Edifying your foodservice operation with customer focused meal personalization, customization, and local differentiation is a success clue no retailer should overlook.

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Scorecard or a Grocerant Program Assessment before you start your remodel or new test concept.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or twitter.com/grocerant Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us