YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- City residents' options for grocery shopping expand by three this morning with the opening of Bottom Dollar Food's newest stores. Grand-openings will take place at the Salisbury, N.C.-based chain's new stores on the South and West sides today, three of seven locations it is opening here and in Pittsburgh today.
"We made the conscious decision to open a number of stores at one time in this market for the simple reason of getting customer awareness," said Jason Wilson, vice president of strategy and planning for the chain. "We felt it would be a great opportunity to enter the market in a big way and let customers know we're here."
Bottom Dollar Food is a subsidiary of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of Brussels-based Delhaize Group, which also operates the Food Lion chain. Today's store openings -- on East Midlothian Boulevard, Mahoning Avenue and Glenwood Avenue and in the Pittsburgh area -- will bring the chain to 43 stores in three states.
The president of Bottom Dollar Food, Meg Ham, said in a prepared statement, "Customers will find Bottom Dollar Food unique because we offer unbelievably low prices, carry quality private brands and the national brands that matter most, and offer a meaningful, efficient assortment of fresh produce and meat."
The stores' associates provide customers "an energetic and lighthearted shopping experience," the CEO added. Each store has employs 30 to 35 workers.
Job fairs in November and December separately attracted 350 applicants, store manager Larry Scheid reported. "We developed a great team from the two job fairs we had," he remarked. "They were gung ho. They were energetic during the interviews."
Store associates are paid "competitive wages" and benefits, spokeswoman Tenisha Waldo said.
The Glenwood Avenue opening, near the city's historic Idora neighborhood, will provide that area its first full-service grocery store in about a decade, since the closing of a Sparkle Market just north of the new Bottom Dollar. A Giant Eagle store that operated nearby in Cornersburg, where Sparkle continues to operate, closed a couple of years ago. The Save-A-Lot chain operates stores elsewhere in the city.
Bottom Dollar Food chose to come to Youngstown as an area "in need of as discount grocer," Wilson said. "It was an opportunity to serve the community with low prices" in an environment that customers would appreciate, he said. "We've got a unique brand offering that will land well with the customers in this area," he added.
On a tour Wednesday afternoon of the Mahoning Avenue store, Wilson, the vice president of strategy and planning, said it is one of the chain's new prototypes. At about 18,000 square feet, similar to the Glenwood and East Midlothian units, the brightly colored stores stock some 6,000 items, about a third of which are private-label brands and the remainder are nationally recognized brands.
"When you walk in the store, one of the things you'll notice is it has a very upbeat feel, very bright colors," Wilson explained. "We think that's a much different shopping environment than a lot of customers are used to, especially when they think about discount shopping."
Near the entrance of the store is a 725-square-foot walk-in, chilled produce cooler, which is kept at about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, Waldo said.
"We do that for a couple of reasons," Wilson said. Produce "is very important to us" and "sets us apart" as a discount grocer, he said. Also, because the produce is taken directly off the truck into the chilled environment, those fruits and vegetables are then fresher. "From a chill-change standpoint, it's very advantageous," he said.
Additionally the store features a meat department "we're very proud of," he remarked. "Our intent is to allow the shopper to come in and buy everything they need," he explained. "We may not have every item you want, but we've got everything that you need to do the full shop."
Bottom Dollar Food also offers a "double back guarantee" on all of its fresh products, Waldo said. Customers can return meat or produce they are dissatisfied with for a full refund plus replacement of the product. The stores also offer a "We Won't Be Beat" guarantee on pricing and will match a competitor's advertised price plus a penny, she said.
Scheid, who joined Bottom Dollar Food three months ago, said he sees it as a "growth company with huge potential in expansion."
The chain will evaluate response to the initial openings before determining whether the Youngstown market warrants additional stores, Wilson said. "We continue to look for opportunities." Bottom Dollar Food is "very focused" on today's openings "and as time will tell we'll continue to look for opportunities that may exist," he said.
In January corporate parent Delhaize Group reported it's closing Bottom Dollar stores in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland as well as 113 Food Lion stores and a distribution center, eliminating 5,000 jobs. Delihaise said it would instead focus its Bottom Dollar growth plan on the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets.
The company reported its sales in the United States were up 2.2% in the United States for its fiscal year, rising to $19.23 billion.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.