As we do each year, Food World and Food Trade News asked executives at supermarket operators in our region to address some issues that will be impactful to the industry in the coming year. Andrea Karns, president of Karns Markets; David Mandell, owner of Gemstone Supermarkets; Danny Hamdan, owner of Met Fresh; Ron H. Murphy, vice president of Murphy’s Fresh Markets, Michael Schaffer, vice president of Eddie’s of Roland Park; and David Green, co-owner of of D&M Management.
- Do you anticipate the economic challenges your customers are currently facing will continue into 2026 and, if so, what are your plans to work through that?
- How do you anticipate the labor market to play out in the coming year with regards to quality of potential employees and their loyalty to the company? What are you doing to ensure that quality and loyalty?
- How do you see your private label/own brands program and the way you go to market with these brands changing/adapting in the coming year?
Andrea Karns
President, Karns Food Markets
- As we look ahead to 2026, we anticipate customers will continue to feel financial pressure in their everyday lives. With ongoing economic uncertainty, shoppers are actively seeking value in their routine purchases, while still looking for occasional, wallet-friendly splurges. To drive trips and loyalty, our focus will be on personalized offers, limited-time deals, and strong everyday value pricing on key value items. At the same time, we want to make the “grocery store splurge” accessible – whether that’s a NY strip steak or a trending treat like Dubai chocolate – at a price point that feels attainable. Helping customers treat themselves while staying within budget is essential to winning the trip.
- Over the past year, we’ve seen lower team member turnover across the organization, and we expect that trend to continue into 2026. Today’s labor market places a high value on support, communication, and mutual loyalty, and retailers must meet those expectations to retain strong talent. To support this, we’ve rolled out enhanced communication and training platforms, implemented a team member recognition program, and introduced surprise-and-delight rewards that can be redeemed on future shopping trips. Employment is a two-way street, and in a customer-service-driven industry, investing in our people is essential to retaining the best.
- Private label continues to be a significant growth opportunity. To sustain that momentum into 2026, two things must happen: competitive pricing and ongoing product innovation. As national brands become more aggressive on price, private label must sharpen its value proposition. While Private label already covers everyday grocery needs well, the next step is layering in seasonal, limited-time, and more unique offerings. These impulse-driven items – especially those tied to flavor trends or seasons – can spark discovery and earn that last, unplanned item in the customer’s basket.
David Mandell
Owner, Gemstone Supermarkets
- Yes, I anticipate the economic challenges will continue in 2026, we will do what we always do, provide good value, good selection, good service, clean stores and products that match the needs of the communities we serve.
- Salaries are rising, which I think adds to low turnover in our workforce. The majority of our employees are invested in our success. We try to treat them well and address their individual needs through flexibility and by providing a caring and stable family atmosphere. Good committed employees are hard to come by and we try to really educate them and guide them.
- I think where private label makes sense, we will continue to push it and feature it in ads and on the shelf, but we also try to buy national brands on deal so we can feature them at everyday low prices. We really follow the data when it comes to what’s selling in our stores, so we are agnostic when it comes to products we can sell, we sell whatever sells, whether it’s private label or not.
Danny Hamdan
Owner, Met Fresh
- Absolutely. I don’t see the pressure on household budgets easing anytime soon. Manufacturers have started adjusting with smaller pack sizes and more affordable options – it’s still on us at store level to make everyday essentials accessible. My approach is to lean into scale where we can: buying key items in bulk for all of our locations to negotiate better costs. That allows us to pass real savings back to our customers, not just promote value, but deliver it where it matters most—in their weekly shop.
- Finding good people is tough but keeping them is easy. I can’t control who walks through the door looking for work, but I can provide a good environment they walk into every day. We’ve built a workplace where people feel respected, supported, and part of something. That culture carries through to how we serve our customers, and it’s why many of our team members stay with us long-term. Communication is everything. Being present, listening, and showing flexibility when someone needs support goes a long way. When employees feel seen and heard, loyalty follows.
- Private label is only getting stronger – especially in better-for-you and cleaner product categories. We’ve expanded our assortment significantly over the past year working closely with our supplier, Associated Supermarket Group (ASG), adding new items and increasing variety, and the response has been extremely positive. We want to help our customers stretch their dollars without sacrificing quality.
Ron H. Murphy
Vice President, Murphy’s Fresh Markets
- Yes, we certainly understand and empathize with economic challenges faced by our customers, our associates, and our community as a whole. We have been working with our wholesaler to fine tune our private label offering as well as using promotional funding offered by manufacturers to offer deep discounts on items of value to our customers. Over the holiday season we offered our custom cut holiday rib roasts at one of the best prices around. We will continue to try to work through ways we can offer value to our customers.
- Loyalty is a difficult subject these days, and I think it’s defined as a two-way relationship. Past generations have been blindly loyal to companies that were not loyal to them, and I think the workforce today is keen to understand what loyalty looks like from an employer. At the end of the day, most people will do what they believe is best for them and their family. Retail is and has always been a great job for someone just starting out in the workforce to learn work ethic and what it means to be part of a team. We have made an effort to hire some very talented leaders throughout our company, and will continue to try to create a community environment of learning together and serving our customers simultaneously.
- We are working closely with our wholesaler to develop a more robust private label program, offering value on high traffic items for everyday savings. Our business model is more geared toward offering value and competitive pricing on known national brands, but we are seeing our consumers shopping at local competitors for commodity and nonfood items where their pricing is better than what we can currently offer. Pricing and margin is always a balance, and as everyone has probably heard by now, grocery margins are thin. Our aim is to offer our customer base options between private label and national brand offerings and allow them to make an informed choice based on their family’s needs.
Michael Schaffer
Vice President, Eddie’s of Roland Park
- I anticipate economic pressures will continue into 2026, and we’re seeing customers make more careful choices about where their grocery dollars go. We’re leaning into what makes us worth the trip: our in-house butchers who can prepare to your exact specifications, our scratch-made bakery items that are irresistible, our delivery service that saves time. We’ve been through economic ups and downs for over 80 years, we know our customers by name, and we adapt to what they need and the current economic environment.
- I expect the labor market to remain competitive in 2026, but I’m optimistic about our ability to attract and retain quality employees. What we’ve learned over 80 years is that people who want to build a career, not just fill a job, are drawn to places where they can develop real skills and form genuine relationships, with customers and coworkers alike.
- When it comes to quality, we look for people who take pride in their work and enjoy connecting with customers. Those qualities matter more than prior experience, because we can teach technical skills, whether that’s butchering, baking, or building the perfect sandwich. What we can’t teach is caring about doing the job well. For retention, our approach has always been straightforward: invest in people who invest in our customers. We promote from within, provide opportunities to learn specialized crafts, and create an environment where employees feel valued for what they bring every day. Our employees often tell us they appreciate the relationships they build with regular customers and the supportive management culture. When you have team members who measure their time with us in decades, some even exceeding 50 years, that tells you something is working. The labor market may swing, but our commitment to developing people and treating them well has kept us staffed through every economic cycle since 1944. That’s the foundation we’ll continue to build on in 2026.
David Green
Co-owner, D&M Management
- We undoubtedly believe that the economic challenges facing our customers will continue, not necessarily through the entire year, but we firmly believe that the first two quarters of 2026 will be equally challenging as far as price is concerned, period. We are seeing some price mitigation in commodities initially such as poultry and egg pricing, but protein prices on the whole are exceptionally high compared to what our customers are basically looking for. As far as marketing to our customer base, we’re being even more stringent with our vendors, and are working with them to get the lowest prices possible so that we can pass those savings on to our customers. We firmly believe that our customers base their meals upon the protein that’s available, whether it’s pork, beef or poultry, and therefore we’ve got to offer them the right price with the right item. We will not compromise quality at any time, and we firmly believe that our customers will pay a little bit more for the quality of the product. That being said, we are conscious of what the competition is doing around us, and we still are featuring in our stores daily meat cutters, and we’re not using any prepackaged product as per se when it comes to protein, and that’s it.
2. We find ourselves in a very competitive labor market, not necessarily from our competition among grocery retailers, but primarily from wholesale distribution centers which surround us and that are paying considerably more per hour than we are to our associates. We work hard to develop our associates and utilize cross-training to provide flexibility. Whenever we can, we also attempt to give our associates more hours. Additionally, we do a daily huddle. When our stores open, each individual manager will bring all their associates together and basically talk about the day’s activities – what trucks are coming in, if the ad is turning over, what promotions are being offered, where we need to concentrate at the store. That same process will occur again when the second shift manager comes in – they review what’s already occurred and discuss issues relevant to our associates who work the second shift. We feel that these team huddles have gone a long way to helping keep our associates involved and the cross-training gives our employees an opportunity to move or advance within the company. The Save A Lot model, and the discount model as a whole, calls for more employees with fewer individual hours. We feel differently – we’d like to give a group, or a select group of employees, as many hours as they would like to work rather than have a constant rotation of people coming and going after three, four, or five hours on the job.
- Since 1975, Save A Lot has used the mantra of controlled private label to differentiate themselves from conventional food retailers. Because of economic-related issues, conventional retailers are now focusing on private brands. We still firmly believe that there is a place for private label in our marketing plan. We do, from time to time – or whenever we can – make a buy on a national brand and feature those items next to our private label of the same item. However, we will constantly utilize on-shelf advertising or even in the advertising in the store, to indicate that our private label is a better buy for the customer. I think that the customer today is much smarter than even five years ago. They fully realize that the contents of that private label box or can are basically the same thing they’re getting from a national brand at significantly lower price. Bottom line, I see continued growth in this area based on current economic conditions and enlightened consumer awareness.