NEW STORE BUILT TO BE PLANET-FRIENDLY
Ten-plus years of selling groceries in Onondaga County must be an anniversary worthy of something. How about opening a new store?
Sure, if you’re discounter Aldi, which rolls out its East Syracusesupermarket, on Manlius Center Road, with a taste-testing, store-tour party from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday that’s open to the public.
And why not? This is a special store, which officially opens for business on Monday but may be open on Sunday, too.
It’s the newest store model for the company, being watched intensely by the U.S. operations of Aldi, a German company which has made its mark with no-frills, no-nonsense, deep-discount grocery retailing.
All eyes are on it because this prototype rocks the green.
“This is the pilot, the first generation of this store,” said Aaron R. Sumida, a vice president with Aldi who knows the Central New York market — he’s parked in the Tully regional offices.
Like its customers, this store is aiming at saving money.
Its customers will notice the skylights, higher ceilings than found in older stores, high windows facing Bridge Street and, perhaps, the unusual lighting in the cooler cases. Beyond the green, there are slicker, more modern graphics, a bit more of a “market” feel to the store and even a sign explaining why you lend Aldi a quarter to use a cart. (You get the quarter back when you return the cart. It’s a money-saving thing: No one needs to round up carts, carts don’t get stolen and your car doesn’t get dinged by a runaway cart.)
On the green side, diamond-shaped LED lighting on the inside frames of the store’s upright coolers provide more than enough light to see the products, and just enough to give the store 80 percent in savings over fluorescent lighting employed in older stores.
The street-front exterior sign also uses LED lighting to cut back on the typical yearly-or-so sign maintenance that comes with replacing fluorescent fixtures.
Like the LED lighting, much of the “green” in this $2 million green Aldi store is behind-the-scenes. New cooling and refrigeration systems were chosen as more Earth-friendly and to save money.
Energy management systems within the store monitor such things as turning off lights in areas where there’s been no traffic — and to make sure lights aren’t inadvertently left on by employees when the store is closed, said Sumida.
Some of the technologies Aldi and other supermarket chains are using in energy management were pioneered by the world’s No. 1 grocer, Wal-Mart, also known for its frugal ways.
“Wal-Mart has been very open with the industry with some of the things they’ve done,” said Sumida. “They’re very innovative in what they’re doing and they are open about
sharing their capabilities with the industry.”
The goal for Aldi, said Sumida, is to “achieve a 30 percent reduction in our utility footprint with this store compared to our older stores.”
Like most energy-efficient investments, the upfront costs are higher, said Sumida, with the long-term goal of saving over time. “We’re optimistic we’ll see a return on our investment.”
That’s in line with what the discounter wants for its customers, who, in the 10 years and seven months Aldi has operated in Onondaga County, have seen the chain adapt and grow.
The stores still are no frills, carrying mostly private-label brand products with a smattering of national brands.
But much has changed. Scanners were added, registers were lowered to help cashiers scan items and place them back into the customer’s cart, and Aldi added Sunday hours.
Yes, customers still do their own bagging, but today, Aldi is marketing that as a “green” perk instead of the cost-savings benefit it used back in the’90s.
Customers also are seeing a wider range of products — more than double the amount — in Aldi stores than they did when the first Onondaga County store had its grand opening on Oct. 30, 1997.
In 1997, Aldi stores typically carried 600 items. Aldi stores today carry 1,300 products.
While customers may be surprised at the growth of the product line, it’s the customers in Onondaga County who have surprised Aldi, which centered its Upstate New York growth plan with its regional headquarters in Tully.
“Business here has exceeded our expectations for a market this size,” said Sumida. “We envisioned Onondaga County as a four-store market. Today we have six. This is our seventh. Potentially, we’ll have eight or nine. And down the road with this new store, we’ll be sharing our Central New York experience with the rest of the Aldi stores in the country.”
Express checkout
E-mail: Janet Hughes writes about recent Store Front e-mail regarding George Gelsomin’s Sweetheart Market, “My father, George Gelsomin, was quite pleased to see the request and comment about the turkey salad recipe and coconut macaroons in your column. It always makes him smile to know his life’s work is still remembered.
“I can answer the questions Jerry Amidon wrote in because I managed the deli at Sweetheart. The coconut macaroons were a favorite of mine also. They were part of a mix from the J.W. Allen company. This company, which used high quality products, enabled us to bake those delicious, sweet tasty treats for our customers. I don’t know if any store in this area uses this company, so he may only be able to remember them in his dreams.
“The turkey salad, however, can be a reality. It consisted of the turkeys we sliced in the deli. They were ground to a fine consistency, we next added a little chopped celery and salt and pepper to taste. We usually used white pepper so the black specks were not seen. The final ingredient was Hellmann’s mayonnaise. We used Hellmann’s in all our deli salad recipes. “When you want to bring out the flavor and bring out the zest, just bring out the Hellmann’s and you bring out the best,’ Yes … I am old enough to remember that slogan, do you? Thanks, Bob, for a trip down memory lane.”
Thank you, Janet. We all appreciate the feedback.
Store Front also runs Sunday and Wednesday in The Post-Standard and the Store Front blog, is updated frequently. New to the mix is the free Store Front e-Newsletter, e-mailed weekly to Friends of Store Front. If you wish to subscribe to the Store Front newsletter, send an e-mail to StoreFront-join@Lists.ThePost-Standard.com — you will receive a confirmation e-mail, hit reply to that and you’re in.
By Bob Niedt, Retail Notebook
Copyright, 2008, The Herald Company