A matter of experience

The year was 1928. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, and the Chillicothe Baking Co. of Chillicothe, Mo., debuted the first-ever loaf of sliced bread.

And with Wood T. Brookshire’s opening of a small grocery store in downtown Tyler, Texas, that event-packed year also marked the birth of Brookshire Grocery Company (BGC). Since then, BGC — still based in Tyler — has grown by leaps and bounds, boasting 150- plus stores in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas under the Brookshire’s, Super 1 Foods and FRESH by Brookshire’s banners. The family-owned company ranks No. 193 on Forbes’ latest “America’s Largest Private Companies” list.

Despite all of the growth, BGC says it remains “focused on offering the same exceptional customer service it was founded on.” The retailer’s mission is to provide both a great food experience and a great shopping experience.

Crucial role for private brands

Today, BGC’s private brands also play an important role in meeting that mission. They are critical to the company’s overall business model as well.

“Our store brand products contribute to our overall business model by generating exclusive brand loyalty, higher margins — 12 percent higher than national brands — marketing impressions and name recognition, price impression and quality perception,” says Trent Brookshire, senior vice president and manager of BGC’s Western Division.

BGC currently offers 1,125 SKUs under its own Brookshire’s brand (“Our Name Is Our Promise”), which covers all categories across center store and within fresh areas that include deli, bakery, produce and more. The brand promises quality at a savings, with products delivering better-than-national-brand quality whenever possible, BGC says.

Brands from Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Topco Associates LLC account for the rest of BGC’s private brand offerings. Such brands include the Full Circle natural and organic brand, the Valu Time entry-level brand, the Top Care health and beauty care brand, the Tippy Toes baby care brand and the Food Club national-brand-equivalent brand. However, BGC notes that it is in the process of replacing its remaining Food Club SKUs with Brookshire’s-branded products.

As Chris Hardin, BGC’s director – brands and consumer strategy, explains, the retailer has unique standards for the Brookshire’s brand, and every item under that brand is the product of a unique discovery process.

“Our mission is to offer better products than the national [brand] equivalent whenever possible,” he explains. “Topco is usually involved in the initial sourcing of suppliers; however, we are always looking for any additional suppliers that can give us an edge on superior quality, unique product profiles, packaging innovation and transportation savings.”

Solution-focused

In addition to offering quality at a value, the Brookshire’s brand aims to give BGC’s customers the solutions they need, says Pete Leung, senior vice president – category management for the retailer.

“We must consider: ‘Are customers shopping for categories or solutions?’ ‘Are they coming in to buy cereal, or are they looking for a breakfast solution?’ Just replicating the national brand is not enough,” he stresses.

That’s why BGC puts an emphasis on truly value-added solutions on the own-brand side, Leung says.

“Positioning must be strategic and more prominent in order to gain presence and trials and to better engage customers with our store brands value proposition,” he adds.

In the quest to deliver value-added solutions, innovation and differentiation also come into play. As Kevin Albritton, executive vice president – sales and marketing, explains, it is important for BGC to take a “customer-forward approach” in going to market.

“We do this by using internal and external customer insights such as Spire and industry data to help us determine the difference between a fad and a true trend,” he says. “Also, more importantly, we have to bring value-added improvements that will benefit customers and improve our quality point of difference.”

Albritton points to Brookshire’s brand single-serve coffee pods as a great example of a recent value-added improvement. Here, BGC partnered with a supplier on a patented on-pod freshness-valve technology that enables natural gases to escape from the cup, but seals out staling oxygen. The result is a much fresher cup of coffee.

Local and regional product development is another important focus area that also differentiates BGC from the competition. Approximately 30 percent of the current Brookshire’s brand items are produced in Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas, Hardin says, with the bulk of them coming from Texas. Texas-produced items run the gamut from carbonated beverages and bottled water to Tex-Mex items, smoked sausage, coffee and much more. Louisiana-produced items, meanwhile, include sugar, cooking oils and sauces.

“Our customers have unique tastes that just can’t be satisfied any other way,” he explains. “Texas and South Louisiana are two very different cultures that require separate approaches when it comes to product selection and flavor profiles.”

Rick Ellis, vice president – marketing for BGC, says the company is very proud of its Tex-Mex family of products, which boasts such items as seasoned tortilla chips, refrigerated salsas and the Queso Easy cheese loaf.

Not every Brookshire’s brand product, regional or otherwise, makes its way into every BGC banner, however. While the Brookshire’s full-service and the Super 1 Foods low-price-focused banners are similar in their store brand offerings, Super 1 Foods does carry some banner-exclusive items, Albritton notes. And the retailer plans to add 20 to 30 items to that banner-exclusive list. The FRESH by Brookshire’s banner, meanwhile, has a more limited selection of Brookshire’s brand offerings, but BGC is adding more items soon, as space allows.

“FRESH by Brookshire’s is BGC’s first step towards the future of food shopping,” Albritton explains. “Meal enhancement, cooking expertise, [an] astounding food and wine selection, family entertainment and a knowledgeable staff make FRESH a destination store in our area.”

Collaborative approach

BGC currently relies on 180 private label suppliers to manufacture its Brookshire’s brand products. To locate the best supplier for each product, the store brands team — which includes a BGC store brands coordinator, the corresponding BGC category manager, a business manager from Stamford, Conn.-based Daymon Worldwide and a design coordinator from Daymon’s Galileo Global Branding Group — engages in what Ellis calls a collaborative supplier search.

“We take great care to choose the right supplier for our company, and part of this process is clearly setting our expectations for quality and consistency prior to any partnership,” he says.

BGC also works in tandem with its suppliers to create unique flavor profiles and product specifications, which gives the retailer an advantage within the region, Leung says.

Not all products are manufactured by outside supplier-partners, however. BGC operates five of its own manufacturing facilities, which produce milk, cultured milk products, ice cream, bakery items, water, tea and ice, Leung notes.

“Being fully integrated with these facilities gives us several unique advantages,” he adds.

Those advantages include being able to begin cost negotiations at the raw material level and keeping item development in-house, Leung says. In addition, the store brands team can bring new or innovative items to market faster.

“Profitability is seen throughout the supply chain,” he says. “There is better execution at store level, with employees maintaining a sense of ownership of the brand/products.”

On the flip side, the challenge lies in owning the entire cost of the risk tied to own-brand products, Leung says. But BGC appears to be up to that challenge.

“Our manufacturing leaders have the knowledge to expand into other areas of production,” he says. “We are committed to growing our manufacturing sales and will continue to look for better ways to serve our customers with our manufacturing facilities.”

Whether the product is manufactured in-house or out of house, quality assurance (QA) also is a priority, Hardin explains. BGC relies on Topco and its strong QA program here.

“They have proven to be experts in this complicated and time-consuming challenge,” he says. “We also follow up with every customer suggestion or complaint through our ‘We’re Listening’ customer service platform.”

‘Our Name Is Our Promise’

Another strong suit for the retailer is its own-brand packaging. In fact, BGC took home a Gold award for its Brookshire’s Reserve Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Store Brands’ 2014 Store Brand Packaging Awards competition. The company took its time when it came to “building the look and feel” for the overall brand as it stands now, considering the strong connection its customers had to the brand, Ellis notes.

“It was important that while creating something new and exciting, we did not break the bond that already existed,” he says. “We asked our customers about the brand, and they told us clearly that the Brookshire name stood for ‘trust and quality.’ That’s brand equity that doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles because it’s true.”

The packaging focus, therefore, centered on building a brand that communicates to BGC customers that the retailer is their “trusted neighbor,” Ellis says, and conveys the message that “Our Name is Our Promise.” He adds that BGC cannot compromise on quality or performance in the quest to satisfy customers.

“If we can’t deliver on that promise, then we just won’t put our name on it,” he stresses.

And when it comes to innovating on the packaging side, the retailer looks beyond just packaging format and design, Leung notes.

“Packaging innovation can come in many forms,” he says, “such as cost-saving material changes, the addition of sustainable materials or customer convenience improvements. BGC is focused on developing innovative products and packaging for our customers.”

On the sustainability front, the retailer always is looking for ways to improve, Hardin says.

“We have some very strong suppliers in this area that have made sustainability a priority,” he says, “and we will continue to seek out supplier-partners who can deliver on this important issue.”

Committed to marketing

BGC’s own-brand efforts don’t end with the development of high-quality, differentiated products and packaging. As Ellis explains, the company also “brings the full arsenal of marketing” to the table when it comes to its Brookshire’s brand. Efforts here include in-store point-of-sale materials; electronic offers through e-mail, text and social media; and targeted offers via the company’s Relevant Rewards loyalty program.

“We also use our products in an ongoing TV media image campaign, billboards and radio,” he says. “Demos and event marketing are also very effective tools for us. In other words, BGC is committed to marketing our brand to our customers.”

Merchandising efforts also help on the private brand marketing front. BGC generally positions its own-brand items next to their national brand equivalents, Albritton says, but opts for a brand-blocking approach in certain categories.

“In these cases, we strive to flank the national brand with our brand,” he says. “The biggest overall changes we’ve seen in the past decade have been driven by new technology that provides us with store-specific schematics to ensure we have the right items on the shelf, along with adequate holding power across all banners.”

In addition, BGC now boasts “a much broader penetration” of its own-brand products within the center store and fresh areas, Albritton notes, as well as in the natural and organic segment.

Lofty goals

BGC’s impressive private brand program remains a work in progress — the company has set ambitious goals going forward, including the addition of approximately 175 SKUs to the Brookshire’s brand lineup by the end of this year.

“We will continue to build a consumer-relevant store brand program across all banners,” Albritton says. “We will also work to grow store brand sales by 10 percent per year over the next three years.”

BGC does face a few challenges in meeting its goals here, Hardin notes, including regulatory changes related to front-of-pack, nutritional facts and country-of-origin labeling; national brand promotional pressures during key selling periods; and management of product and label lifecycles.

“We work closely with Daymon, the FMI Private Brands [Leadership] Council and various share groups to not only stay abreast of what is transpiring, but also to be a part of the conversation,” he says.

The company’s customer-centric private brand program is part of its longstanding commitment to a great food and shopping experience — and that commitment, one shared by employees at the store level, also should go a long way toward ensuring success in the years to come.

“Our employees, who we refer to as ‘partners,’ are definitely one of the main drivers that set us apart from the competition,” Brookshire emphasizes. “Their passion for delivering personal and knowledgeable customer service and engagement ensures that we deliver on our mission.”