Grocers new to the neighborhood
Costco Warehouse
Fresh Thyme Farmers Market
Whole Foods *
Gone but not forgotten
Springboro IGA
Cub Foods
Endangered
Lofino’s Marketplace **
* Scheduled to open in late spring.
** Owner indicated to state officials that he was poised to close the store.
Source: Dayton Daily News research
Grocers are ramping up their efforts to capture the loyalty — and the dollars — of this region’s food shoppers in the wake of intensifying competition.
The latest salvos in the Miami Valley’s grocery-market war came last week. Several new stores are in various stages of development and construction, and existing stores are undergoing extensive renovations. Together, the businesses are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and have already created hundreds of new jobs.
In the end, shoppers will benefit.
“Competition is always good for the consumer,” said Nate Filler, president and chief executive of the Ohio Grocers Association. “It makes all of the grocers raise their game and raise the bar, but it will also keep them from raising their prices.”
Here are some of the latest developments, and some of the factors that have led to an increasingly competitive grocery market:
• By this summer, three retailers new to the Dayton area — Costco Warehouse, Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme Farmers Market — will have made their debuts. Costco opened late last year in the Cornerstone of Centerville, Fresh Thyme opened a Sugarcreek Twp. store and is building a second location in Beavercreek, and Whole Foods is scheduled to open in late spring on Ohio 725 in Washington Twp.
• Last week, officials with Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Meijer announced they will invest $50 million in four Dayton-area stores, launching extensive renovations of “supercenter” stores in Kettering, Beavercreek, Miami Twp. and Englewood. Each of the stores will add a drive-through pharmacy, build a new facade and remodel its gas station, among other improvements.
• Kroger last month celebrated a grand reopening of its store on Brandt Pike next to Huber Heights following a $4.8 million renovation, and it has submitted plans for similar makeovers to its Sugarcreek Twp. store on Wilmington Pike and to its Lemon Twp. store in Butler County. The Cincinnati-based grocery chain is moving ahead with plans to build new stores in Liberty Twp. in Butler County, in Troy next to an existing store, and at the Cornerstone of Centerville multi-use development that currently houses Costco.
• Dorothy Lane Market late last year completed a $1.3 million facelift to its Oakwood store and is finishing a $300,000 renovation of that store’s kitchens, where ready-to-eat dishes in the DLM deli case are cooked and assembled. And at its Washington Square store in Washington Twp., DLM is building a new 7,500-square-foot facility to produce Killer Brownies. It also has expanded its bread bakery and installed a new oven for its European-style breads.
• Late last year, the owners of Town & County Shopping Center announced its specialty grocery store — Trader Joe’s — would expand by 25 percent to 1,250 square feet during the first quarter of 2015.
• In the past three years, while grocery-focused stores were slugging it out, general-merchandise retailers such as Walmart, Target, and some dollar stores have increased the amount of floor space devoted to groceries, trying to provide a “one-stop shopping” experience that might keep customers out of grocery stores entirely.
The cut-throat competition already has claimed victims, or appears poised to:
• In December 2014, the Springboro IGA grocery store at Ohio 741 and Ohio 73, which was founded in 1958, shut down, its owner Doug Preston acknowledging, “With all the big (grocery) stores around, it’s hard to compete these days.”
• In Beavercreek, the Lofino’s Marketplace at U.S. 35 and North Fairfield Road shut down its pharmacy last week, and although there has been no formal announcement that the store itself is closing, owner Michael Lofino told state officials in a cover letter to the Ohio Division of Liquor Control that he has decided to get out of the retail grocery business. He is poised to close his last remaining store in Beavercreek after relocating its wine and liquor-sales operations to another storefront in the Beaver Valley Shopping Center.
• Lofino’s Food Stores also owned Cub Foods when the last three of the value-brand stores — in Sugarcreek Twp., Miami Twp. and Trotwood — shut down in 2012 and early 2013.
The heads of two other locally owned, independent grocers — the two-store Dot’s Market and the three-store Dorothy Lane Market — say they are confident they can survive the current onslaught of competition.
“I think there’s a niche for us, and I think there always will be a niche for locally owned, customer-service-oriented businesses such as ours,” said Rob Bernhard, owner of Dot’s Market, which operates stores in northeast Kettering near the Belmont neighborhood of Dayton, and in Bellbrook near an existing Kroger store slated for a makeover.
“We’re on our third generation of customers in some families, and they’re very loyal,” Bernhard said, noting that Dot’s is approaching the 64th anniversary of its founding.
The opening last month of the region’s first Fresh Thyme Farmers Market in Sugarcreek Twp. near Bernhard’s Bellbrook store “did not affect us greatly, and I was pleasantly surprised at that,” the Dot’s owner said.
Norman Mayne, CEO of Dorothy Lane Market, said his stores also have seen no measurable impact on sales.
“We haven’t seen any losses or gains. Sales have been very good,” Mayne said.
Shoppers, Mayne said, will benefit from the increased competition.
“They’ll have more choices, more interesting products coming to the area,” Mayne said. “And it could cause more price competition — especially if someone’s sales start to get hurt.”
Filler, from the Ohio Grocers Association, said those who study the industry are seeing two trends: many consumers are looking for value and low prices, but many also are willing to pay more for quality. Those dual trends favor retailers at the low-cost end of the grocery spectrum and those specialty grocers at the upscale end of the market — which can leave grocers in the middle feeling squeezed, Filler said.
Meijer, which offers a large selection of grocery items but also sells clothing and dry goods, is an investor in Fresh Thyme Farmers Markets, although it does not participate in the management of the specialty grocer.
Meijer spokesman Frank Guglielmi said the $50 million project making over four Dayton-area stores was not a direct result of increased competition.
“This is what we do. We’re always investing in our stores,” Guglielmi said.
Ohio is the second-biggest market for the retailer — after its home state of Michigan — and Meijer is preparing to enter its sixth state, building four stores in Wisconsin, where it will be the new kid on the block.
“We never back down from competition in any of our markets,” Guglielmi said.
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