Happy New Year everyone! 2023 is here and it will be a very interesting year to monitor our industry and keep tabs on all of the challenges that we still face. We promise to continue to bring you all of the current news and happenings as they occur, as well as our own analysis.
Well, Long Island will have a couple of openings coming over the next year. Wegmans announced it will begin construction on it first Long Island store in Lake Grove with an anticipated 2024 opening.
The property purchase is expected to close this spring and according to Wegmans spokesperson Mandee Puleo, “It usually takes about a year from the time construction begins to complete the project, so we will have a better idea of an opening date once construction begins.” The location of the future Wegmans is in the same plaza as a former Fairway Market which lasted just two years until it closed in 2016 after the company filed for bankruptcy. However, Wegmans plans to raze much of the plaza and start with new construction. As we learn more of the definitive plans we will pass them along.
Also, Lidl will unveil its first new-construction store (and 24th overall on LI), a 35,000 square foot unit in Deer Park on Commack Road. Lidl first expanded into Long Island when it acquired 27 Best Market supermarkets in New York and New Jersey and converted a majority of the those to the Lidl banner. The discount supermarket operator currently has 170 stores located along the East Coast.
Wakefern Food Corporation announced that it will be holding an Own Brands Supplier Diversity Summit, and certified diverse private label manufacturers and suppliers interested in participating are encouraged to submit their applications through RangeMe.com from January 9 through January 23. Wakefern’s private label team will consider submissions for virtual pitch meetings and finalists will have the opportunity to attend a one-day summit in June 2023 at Wakefern’s headquarters where they will present their innovative products to a panel of executives. The strongest products will be selected for potential addition to the Bowl & Basket or Wholesome Pantry brands with a goal of establishing long-term partnerships.
“We are excited to expand on the success of our first Own Brands Supplier Summit,” said Bryant Harris, chief merchandising officer (CMO) at Wakefern. “We are particularly looking forward to meeting with a variety of diverse manufacturers to learn more about their unique products. At Wakefern, we know that embracing diversity fosters creativity and strengthens our product offerings and services.”
Wakefern’s premium own brand products offer consumers on-trend, high-quality foods at competitive prices. The co-op has invested in the private label lines Bowl & Basket and Wholesome Pantry by focusing on quality and innovation, and customers are embracing the brands as sales continue to grow.
The Bowl & Basket brand was awarded the Private Label Manufacturers Association Salute to Excellence Award in 2021 and its Wholesome Pantry brand received two Private Label Manufacturers Association Salute to Excellence Awards in 2017.
Certified minority, LGBTQ+, woman, veteran and disability-owned businesses with products or services in the listed categories can apply for consideration in the event. At this time, Wakefern will not be accepting submissions for non-food items, supplemental and nutritional items, or baby food. All other food items will be considered. Applicants must provide a complete and accurate description of the product and product line, including a brand profile. For more information and to complete an application, visit www.rangeme.com/wakefernownbranddiversity2023.
Goya helped out big time in Buffalo with blizzard recovery when it donated 30,000 pounds of food through its Goya Gives initiative. “Our hearts go out to our neighbors in Western New York. As a company, we have always prioritized relief for those in need. It’s part of our DNA. Beyond mass food donations and distribution efforts, we continue to provide extra support when communities need it most,” said Bob Unanue, president and CEO of Goya Foods.
Goya has a distribution facility in nearby Angola, NY and mobilized to deliver donations to community centers throughout the city of Buffalo. The Angola facility remained open 24 hours a day throughout the severe conditions to provide essential food deliveries to its surrounding cities. Well done, Goya!!
Leave it to our NYC food retailers to take matters into their own hands as it relates to the non-action of the local and state government when it comes to the fight against crime. Thousands of independent grocers across New York City formed a fast-growing political coalition to demand that elected officials and law enforcement clamp down on shoplifters, claiming that increasingly brazen and violent heists have created a crisis, according to the New York Post.
The group is calling for prosecutors and judges to set bail for “repeat theft offenders,” reversing key provisions of New York’s sweeping bail reform law in 2019.
Collective Action to Protect our Stores, or CAPS, is also asking lawmakers to make assaults on retail workers a Class D felony (a protection given to MTA and NYPD officers and livery drivers in New York that grocers argue they should receive as essential workers, too).
“We have been assaulted, terrorized, and our physical and mental health jeopardized,” the group said in a letter being sent to Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, in addition to other city and state officials. “A rise in larceny cases has hit independent supermarkets hard.”
The group also wants legislators to tackle a problem that many believe is at the heart of the spike in burglaries: the fact that thieves are not typically prosecuted or arrested for stealing less than $1,000 worth of goods. CAPS is asking for a change in the law so that serial shoplifters who cumulatively steal more than $1,000 worth of goods over time will be charged with grand larceny instead of petit larceny.
“’Repeat offenders’ are the key words,” Carlos Collado, NSA board member and owner of two Fine Fare grocery stores said. “We are not asking for elevated charges for first-time offenders, but to send a message to those who make it a career.”
Businesses that resell stolen goods should likewise be put on notice, CAPS says in the letter, which calls for reclassification of such transactions as Class A misdemeanors that could result in fines and even short jail time for operators.
“Ninety-seven percent of the shoplifters do it to sell the stuff,” said Francisco Marte, who owns two bodegas in the Bronx and heads up the Bodega group. Very few are “doing it because they are hungry,” Marte added.
Among CAPS’ initial members are: the Bodega Small Business Group and its 3,000 members in NYC, Long Island and New Jersey; the National Supermarket Association (NSA) along with its 600 store members: and the Metro Supermarket Association, which represents about 60 Korean grocers. The group has hired the lobbying firm CMW Strategies to work on their behalf.
Nallely deJesus, NSA VP whose family owns five Key Food banners, said supermarkets are in a bind over whether to tell employees to try to catch shoplifters in the act and stop them.
“You become the go-to store in the neighborhood if you don’t do anything,” she said.
This summer, however, she added that her brother – after thwarting a would-be meat burglar four times in the Bronx location he managed – and saw the thug barge into the store wielding a shotgun.
“My brother ran to the back of the store where we have a storage room and the customers who were in the aisle ran with him for safety. All the other customers were on the floor — movie style.”
The police didn’t show up until an hour later, she said. “We lost business after that, because who wants to go to a store where someone walked in with a shotgun?”
Collado said it’s “maybe in the past eight months” that he and fellow supermarket operators, exhausted from a lack of law enforcement, “started feeling like it’s useless to call the cops.”
“Sometimes now we catch them and we don’t even bother calling NYPD unless it results in a violent aggressor,” Collado said. “We don’t even hear from the DAs. We handle it ourselves.”
Even the chain stores are getting into it.
Getting busted on petty larceny charges no longer serves as a deterrent to stealing, said Dominick Albergo, head of security for Gristedes. “We had one shoplifter arrested three times in one day and he kept returning to the store. They were all desk appearance tickets,” said Albergo, who is also an ex-New York cop. Gristedes owner John Catsimatidis, who last year offered a $10,000 reward after one of his stores was robbed at gunpoint, also said there was “a difference between professional thieves who are ruining the city and someone stealing a loaf of bread because he’s hungry.”
“Bail reform for someone stealing a loaf of bread? Yes. For professional thieves? No!” he said.
Avi Kaner, co-owner of the Morton Williams supermarket chain said his company spent an extra $1 million last year to hire off-duty NYPD officers to work security and blamed “ultra-liberal prosecution” for creating a sense of “theft entitlement.” The situation has gotten so out of hand that even everyday shoppers are even getting in on the action, Kaner said. “We recently stopped a senior citizen with a Louis Vuitton bag stealing expensive cheeses,” he lamented.
Jason Ferreira, president of Ferreira Family Foodtown and NSA board member, said, “The response from law enforcement has been very inefficient, almost nonexistent, because it just seems there’s a lax attitude toward people shoplifting.”
“There definitely needs to be a collaboration between Albany and the city,” he said. “We’ve spoken to the mayor. He said his hands are tied and Albany is not hearing him.” Here’s hoping that the collective push from this newly formed influential group can bring some order and sanity to a very frightful situation.
Once again, I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and I look forward to crossing paths with many of you in the near future. As always you can reach me at 201.250.2217 or [email protected].