They've Got It All

Group photo by Peter Schofield; Cover photo and product shots by Matt Hackett

While attending a Food Marketing Institute event several years ago, Neil Golub — then CEO of the Golub Corp., parent company of Price Chopper Supermarkets — and his wife Jane received an old box from a fellow attendee. It was not jewel-encrusted, nor did it contain riches of any sort. But it is awfully valuable.

Valuable to the Golubs, at least — the historic artifact once contained a pound of boneless Canadian codfish sold under the Sweet Life brand, a store brand hailing from the Golub Corp.'s early days. To Neil, Jane and the rest of the Golub clan, the wooden box is a window into the past, a reminder of the retailer's place in the community — and community members' lives — for so many decades. It is, in a sense, priceless.

"[This man] had found it at some auction in his travels, and realized with its Schenectady, New York, address on it that it was connected to our family," says Mona Golub, the Golub Corp.'s vice president of public relations and consumer and marketing services, who also is Neil and Jane's daughter. "It [must be] as old as the company itself."

Founded in 1932, the Golub Corp. (then called the Grosberg Golub Corp., named after founders Joseph Grosberg and Lewis Golub) opened its first grocery store — The Public Service Market — in the Upstate New York town of Green Island. According to Mona Golub, the store was a full-fledged supermarket based on a concept downstate. Nine years later — after Lewis Golub's sons Ben and Bill bought out Grosberg — the company launched a chain of supermarkets called Central Markets; the chain was renamed Price Chopper in 1973.

And as the codfish box proves, private label has played a critical role in winning shopper loyalty since the early days, Mona Golub says.

"Our actual corporate brand program — in terms of printed packaging — began in the early '40s," she explains.

Now — roughly 70 years later — the Schenectady, N.Y.-based company boasts a strong private brands team headed by Mike DeJulio, director of corporate brands, who served as director of health and beauty care (HBC) until his promotion in October 2011. DeJulio now oversees new item design and development, works with merchandising teams to create business plans for sales and profit objectives, and works directly with Stamford, Conn.-based Daymon Worldwide for product sourcing, Price Chopper noted in a press release.

Let's talk tiers

Today, Price Chopper has a three-tier corporate brand program that also incorporates some niche brands, DeJulio says. Value-tier products are sold under the Clear Value brand, sourced from Topco Associates; national-brand-equivalent (NBE) products are offered under the Price Chopper brand; and premium products are sold under the Central Market Classics brand (named after the chain's original moniker).

"We really give our consumers a reason to shop nowhere else except Price Chopper. We offer a premium [brand]; we offer the Price Chopper brand; and we also offer the Clear Value brand … and that gives us a complete range of products to offer," DeJulio says. "We also have Price Chopper Naturals and Full Circle, [which] gets us in the natural and organic arena. There's a tremendous upsurge in specialty foods in those areas."

On the health and beauty care (HBC) side, Price Chopper retails products under two brands: Top Care (from Topco) and Price Chopper.

"More than 50 percent of our [HBC] products are Price Chopper brand products … but we also supplement those with Top Care," DeJulio notes. "It gives us a wide range, so that way, we're in every niche of a category."

As for the benefits Topco provides, DeJulio says the Skokie, Ill.-based company helps the retailer better understand market trends by enabling it to listen to consumers in a geographic area beyond Price Chopper's market (which covers six states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont).

"They really supplement what we do … and always have done for ourselves internally," Mona Golub says. "We follow market trends and listen to our customers in our stores, as well as through social networking and customer communication."

Of course, staying up to date on trends isn't always easy. DeJulio says it's one of the biggest challenges his team faces in managing Price Chopper's corporate brands program.

"It used to be awhile back that trends would last a year, two years, three years," he says. "Trends now are lasting six months, and you constantly have to go to other retailers and other channels to see what's going on."

Also a challenge is finding opportunities within categories, DeJulio notes.

"Categories shrink; categories grow," he states. "So you have to be on top of that and stay on those sales trends itself within the store. You have to know when to expand and … when to cut back — and really what to put your name on."

And while Price Chopper also faces the typical quality assurance (QA) challenges many other retailers face, it boasts a three-pronged solution. First, an in-house QA team monitors current product quality.

"The frequency of product monitoring is determined by several factors: prior product quality issues, consumer feedback, product recalls or withdrawals, and the status of our trade partner's GFSI certification," DeJulio states.

Second, the team tests all potential new products wherever applicable. And third, the team regulates label compliance on all corporate brand packaging and any food manufactured at store level.

"That's the litmus test we use to see how our products measure up visually and from a taste and texture perspective to the other products that are out there," Mona Golub says. "And that's not just other national brand products … that may mean comparable corporate brand products that are out there on the landscape."

Mona Golub emphasizes that Price Chopper's products "have to be the best" if they're going to bear one of the company's corporate brand names.

Pride in the products

Although he is proud of all products bearing Price Chopper's corporate brand names, DeJulio has a few that are his absolute favorites. The first one is Central Market Classics Thai Chili Roasted Garlic dipping sauce, manufactured by Wild Thymes, a specialty food company based in Medusa, N.Y.

"This product itself is extremely unique," DeJulio states. "[It's] not overly expensive, but it really gets us into the specialty market."

The product was an instant hit, Mona Golub says. Not only did shoppers love the sauce, but they also found new ways to use it.

"That was a surprise item," Mona Golub says. "It's a glaze for grilled seafood and poultry. It's also a stir-fry sauce, potentially."

And according to one customer, the product tastes great when poured over a bar of cream cheese and served with Wheat Thins and other crackers. So the corporate brands team members prepared the product in this manner. They loved it so much, they began to share the idea through in-store demos, store publications and holiday entertaining classes, Mona Golub says.

Second on his favorites list is a line of gelatos sold under the Central Market Classics brand, DeJulio says. The line — which comprises eight flavors — has been a huge hit since its debut last summer. And while the Thai Chili Roasted Garlic dipping sauce is sourced from a local supplier, the gelatos are imported from Italy.

Mona Golub explains that the "decadent" and "indulgent" line includes both traditional Italian flavors such as limoncello and panna cotta, as well as unique flavors such as blood orange and coconut.

And the decadence doesn't stop with gelato. During the past year, Price Chopper introduced its Central Market Classics Decadent Desserts line of dessert pastries sold in the bakery department. The desserts are made from recipes inspired by the retailer's own decorators. Products include Peanut Butter pie, 7th Heaven chocolate cake, Cannoli Dream cake and more.

"The end result and the feedback from our consumers [have] been terrific," he explains.

Mona Golub adds that in addition to the year-round Decadent Desserts, Price Chopper also creates seasonal products in the form of holiday cakes, such as the Be Mine cake for Valentine's Day and the Lemon Berry Bliss cake for Easter.

"All are limited-time offers made fresh in our bakeries, exclusive to Price Chopper, and part of the exquisite, decadent line that we hang our hats on," she points out.

But on the packaged goods side of its store brand program, Price Chopper does not manufacture anything in-house, instead relying on a little more than 360 suppliers to manufacture its roughly 8,500 SKUs (1,000 of which were introduced in fiscal 2011). However, the company does get involved in the R&D process, DeJulio states.

"An example … would be our Central Market Classics ice cream," he says. "We worked very extensively with our trade partner to try to develop the [flavor] profile we wanted."

Mona Golub also uses the Central Market Classics brand as an example of how the corporate brands team gets involved with package development.

"To make it more exclusive and proprietary, there's a panel on every Central Market Classics product package that contains a snippet of our history as a company, and an actual signature of our chairman of the board and our president and CEO connecting [the Golub] family to this brand and to this company," she notes.

They stand behind their brands

After the product and package development process is complete, DeJulio says his team trains store-level employees to support newly released products or lines.

"You've heard about the four P's [of marketing,]" he notes. "We really think of it as five P's [with our] corporate brands: pricing, planogramming, promotions and the product itself. But the fifth P for us is our people. We really want our people to be actively involved in corporate brands."

To encourage store-level employees to try a new product, DeJulio says his team provides them all with a discount on the retailer's "Item of the Month" — a private label product promoted throughout all 128 Price Chopper stores for a four-week period.

Price Chopper also puts out the Weekly Scoop, an informational newsletter for store-level employees that educates them on a number of topics, including corporate brand developments, DeJulio points out.

For its customers, the retailer publishes two magazines:Live and Cheers. Live is targeted toward health-and-wellness-minded customers, while Cheers is targeted toward customers who want to cook and entertain at home. DeJulio says corporate brands play a big role in both magazines, and the print publications have "done really well" to help drive store brand loyalty.

In the digital realm, Price Chopper uses social media to connect its corporate brands with consumers. DeJulio says the retailer has more than 100,000 Facebook fans, with whom it shares corporate brand product coupons and engages in discussions about store brand products. It also boasts a panel of bloggers that regularly discusses and introduces new corporate brand products on the company's blog.

2012 and beyond

As for the future, DeJulio says his team will continue to develop and drive innovation within each of Price Chopper's brands through the rest of 2012 and beyond.

"We will continue to focus on redesigning our current Price Chopper brand packaging, updating it as we go, and to create one look our consumers can easily identify," he adds.

And at time of press, the corporate brands team had a couple of new lines in the works. The first is a line of traditional Italian products sourced from manufacturers in Italy that includes pasta, oils, vinegars and more. The second is a line of own-brand gluten-free products.

"Right now, gluten-free and specialty import Italian-type products are flying off the shelf in the branded arena," DeJulio explains. "We have certainly recognized that, and we certainly are going after those opportunities."

We're grillin' tonight!

Every summer, Price Chopper hosts House of BBQ, a promotional campaign that runs through Labor Day. The retailer extends the campaign throughout the various departments of its stores, putting a heavy focus on fresh products (meat, seafood, produce and more) and cross-merchandising them with national brand and store brand packaged products (condiments, potato chips, marinades, charcoal briquettes, spices and seasonings, paper plates and more) and grilling utensils, says Mona Golub, the Golub Corp.'s vice president of public relations and consumer and marketing services. Several hundred products are included in the promotion.

Price Chopper promotes the campaign through a variety of media, such as in-store signage and displays, a dedicated webpage (www.pricechopper.com/savings/house-of-bbq), a Grillin' Guide (containing product promotions, grilling tips and recipes) and television commercials featuring the words of the campaign's bluesy jingle, "Not cookin' tonight; we're grillin' tonight!" (Check out recent editions at bit.ly/KqTG09 and bit.ly/MAev3n.)