A grand time for grocery shoppers

Filling the fridge and cupboard with food has never cost more. And with the dour economy, several grocery chains are pulling out all the stops to steer customers back into their stores and away from the competition.

In Anne Arundel County, that meant grand re-openings of three remodeled stores in the past two weeks - a Shoppers in Parole, a Safeway in Arnold and a Giant in Severna Park - complete with new merchandise, interior designs and fixtures, image makeovers and "rebranding" and even some new technology.

The public finally caught its first glimpse of the renovations at the Giant in Severna Park on Nov. 7, the Safeway in Arnold on Thursday and the Shoppers in Parole yesterday.

The Shoppers Food and Pharmacy company, which consists of 63 stores in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., essentially tripled the size of its Parole store.

Dick Bergman, president of Shoppers, speaks frankly about the condition of the old store versus the "new-and-improved" store that opened yesterday. Right down to the shopping carts, Shoppers has opted for higher-end fixtures and decor.

"It was a small warehouse with stark colors, and it wasn't very inviting," Mr. Bergman said of the store before the 11-week renovation project. "One thing I've learned in retail is that people buy with their eyes. With food, they can't generally taste the product or smell it, so it's important that the products look good."

One way that Mr. Bergman said they've tried to make frozen food items look more enticing is with the new top-line freezers they purchased called Zero Zone, which illuminate boxes of pizzas and TV dinners with soft LED lighting.

"Now it looks like we polished every box and bag," he said.

The store also has expanded its produce offerings to include even more ethnic varieties than before the remodeling. One vegetable stand, for example, included Thai chili peppers, Chinese eggplants, bitter melons and large tarot roots.

Penny Evans, who browsed the store at a VIP event Friday, said she appreciates the ethnic diversity of the store's selection.

"I think it's just terrific," she said. "Of course, I'll shop anywhere they sell food, but this is an impressive store."

Shoppers seems to be attempting a toe-to-toe competition with Giant, the Annapolis "market leader," Mr. Bergman said. Each shelf in the store has a tag comparing Shoppers' prices to Giant's.

When Shoppers opened at 7 a.m. yesterday, customers clamored to be one of the first 500 to enter the store to receive a promotional giveaway: a free Thanksgiving turkey.

The new look already may be proving to be worth the cost.

Lindra Best, who also attended the VIP event Friday, said she had never shopped in the store before the renovations but intends to return after catching a sneak peek.

"It wasn't attractive to me before, isn't that funny?" she laughed. "But it looks fabulous now. I'm in real estate - it has that curb appeal. So I'll be back."

Safeway

The Safeway on Route 2 in Arnold showed off its upgrades at a grand opening Thursday.

Safeway, a company that operates 1,738 U.S. and Canadian stores, razed the old store and built a 53,000-square-foot store on the property, which is about three times the size of the original structure.

On Thursday afternoon, the parking lots and roads surrounding the newly remodeled store were packed. People eager to get a look started slowing traffic and jockeying for parking spots along Ritchie Highway, Arnold Road and Church Road well before the 4 p.m. preview party began.

Parking lot attendants kept cars moving in and out of the lots in front of and underneath the store, but many decided to park at the Arnold Senior Center, Arnold Elementary School and Asbury United Methodist Church down the street, and walk from there.

But one of the more novel draws of the new store is the parking lot itself, customers said.

"One of the interesting features of this store is that it has an underground parking area, so people now can park under the store, go up into the store with their shopping cart, and unload in their cars without ever going outside," said Gregory Ten Eyck, a Safeway spokesman. "People are going to appreciate that feature in the colder months and rainy days."

The company has either renovated or rebuilt 1,000 existing Safeways to incorporate its new "lifestyle" branding - a concept that incorporates more conveniences like banking, quick meals, dry-cleaning and non-food general merchandise, Mr. Ten Eyck said.

Despite a difficult market, the company feels strongly that spending capital on the new store designs will only help to increase sales in the long run, he said.

"We feel it's a good return on investment, and we find that it helps our shoppers enjoy the experience," he said.

Giant

With 182 grocery stores in Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, Giant reopened the doors at the 573 Ritchie Highway location Nov. 7 after a 12-week stint of renovations. The refurbished store is 63,000 square feet.

"The renovation's been very much overdue," said Jamie Miller, a spokesman for Giant, who added that the Severna Park Giant is one of 100 Giants scheduled for a face-lift before 2011.

Along with new lighting, flooring, ceiling and decor, the company also has integrated a couple of new technologies, like a "deli vision digital computer kiosk" and "personal scanners," he said.

The deli vision kiosk allows shoppers to place their deli orders in a touch-screen computer so that they may continue their shopping while the order is filled. When the order is ready, the deli will announce it over an intercom.

The personal scanners allow customers to scan the barcodes of their purchases while they remove the items from the shelves and place them into their carts. At the end of their shopping trips, the customers pay the total and then leave without having to unload and reload their carts at the cash register. The system, Mr. Miller said, relies on customers using an honor code while they use the personal scanners to actually scan everything they put in their buggies.

"The technology saves them quite a bit of time," he said. "Our experience is that the customers do take advantage of the technology, and we haven't had any issues with customers being dishonest with the system."

Aside from ambience, the company also has adjusted the prices of more than 1,000 items in the store.

"We've been doing that aisle-by-aisle over the past two years," Mr. Miller said.

Features Editor Kathryn Flynn contributed to this report.