Designing The Future

New store or remodel, here are some ideas from the front line of design.

"Most supermarket chains should probably be asking themselves this question: If the

very idea of a supermarket was new and there had never been a supermarket before, would we build something like we have today? Of course not."

This provocative statement is from Kevin Ervin Kelley, principal at Shook Kelley, in Los Angeles. Kelley says today's most compelling and innovative food retailers are breaking out and away from the traditional chassis and using design in a different way.

"The traditional role of the store designer in the new store or renovation process is to bring them in at the end when the whole store is essentially figured out," Kelley says, "and then they add ambience and store decor. But if there's one thing that great companies like Apple have taught us in the last decade, it's that it's important to bring designers — like Jonathan Ives, lead designer at Apple — to the table at the outset of the process, not the end."

Even in this meta-changing world, Kelley believes, people are looking for nonfunctional solutions in the form of ideas and inspirations. He feels the opportunities are "immense" for supermarket design change, but that most retailers are missing out because "they're somewhat fearful about having too strong of a point of view. Having an opinion on what to eat and why is something that traditional grocery stores rarely did," according to Kelley, who feels that today's most innovative retailers, including Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market, as well as smaller regional chains like Barons Market in San Diego, are doing exactly that.

Paul Rottler, managing partner at Authentic Retail Group, in Pasadena, Calif, cites what his company calls "hyper-localization" as what should be a driving design force. Whole Foods, he says, "not only embraces the culture of specific regions of their market, but they design every single store from the ground up specifically for that particular store's local market."

Rottler feels that Whole Foods "has local focus in its DNA" and that its regions and stores have true financial responsibility for P&L, so they have unparalleled latitude in decision-making about their particular needs, including design. Wegmans Food Markets also "gives store leadership this kind of sway, although their stores are largely adopted versions of a current prototype," he says, "but when it comes to localization efforts by a national grocery brand, we haven't seen anyone who touches Whole Foods," he emphasizes.

At King Retail Solutions, in Eugene, Ore., Creative Director Christopher Studach sees two recent design trends that are becoming more and common. "The first," he says, "is the need for reinvention" and many market operators realize that food retail and consumption are changing and see the need to reinvent and perhaps to re-brand. The conventional market he sees as middle of the road and quotes a client as saying, "The middle of the road is the road to nowhere."

Studach says that "new localized products are becoming the lightning rod of change" and that, in some cases, new formats and brands are being built around this concept. "The emphasis is on fresh, and it can't be fresher than what comes from the community," he adds.

The second design trend he sees is that of "format blurring," in which traditionally segregated retail markets "are being violated by a mashup of hybrid stores mixing categories that did not coexist before," like food stores selling apparel, drug stores selling food, and all dabbling in foodservice.

"Consider this a bold experiment," Studach continues, "but if nothing else, it is dynamic and game-changing. The rewards of a successful mix are great, but the downside is expanded competition. Whatever the results, things won't be the same."

In the realm of new stores, Jeff Campbell, VP and head of grocery practice at Applied Predictive Technologies, in Arlington, Va., says, "Increasingly, grocers are using advanced network-planning software to understand the drivers of new store success, including demographic, competitive and detailed site survey information."

Campbell feels that many grocers open new stores based on analysis that may not accurately take into account the sales-cannibalizing impact on nearby locations. "Grocers with advanced predictive analytics are able to incorporate the impact of can-nibalization into their new site plans, ensuring that new sites will increase total network profits," he says.

Remodels are a different animal, and Campbell says that a poor remodel can be a "double whammy — it eats up cash and can disrupt shopping opportunities for loyal customers, sometimes leading to long-term customer attrition and losses."

The key to addressing these challenges, according to Campbell, is to have analytics in place that help retailers understand what works, what doesn't and what can be fine-tuned. "For example," he says, "Family Dollar Stores carefully tested installing refrigeration units in outlets that, up to that point, had sold only dry goods. What it found, based on a test of only a few dozen stores, was that the impact was far greater than the sales gains in milk, eggs and frozen pizza. The bigger impact on profit came from increased volume in its traditional dry goods. Such analysis is dramatically changing the remodel strategy at major retailers."

Equipment suppliers are playing an increasing role in store design. "Equipment manufacturers such as Hobart help educate customers and designers about advances in equipment technology and innovation across various equipment categories," says Jason Prondzinski, VP of national accounts at Hobart parent ITW Food Equipment Group, in Troy, Ohio.

The company works with contacts in retail customers' purchasing or facilities departments, or specific departments such as deli or bakery, on a regular basis and acts as a resource when it comes to understanding the benefits of the latest equipment models, Prondzinski notes.

At InterMetro Industries Corp. (Metro), in Wil-kes-Barre, Pa., maker of storage and material-handling systems, Market Manager Terry Kevett says, "Metro's retail space-planning specialists can provide everything from product specs and quotations to developing customized solutions for difficult issues."

Metro offers a complimentary in-house analysis of an existing space or configuration to develop space-optimizing ideas. "Typically," Kevett says, "we would interview associates and learn what problems or issues arise from current equipment or processes, and work to eliminate space inefficiencies with an eye toward increasing employee productivity."

"If the very idea of a supermarket was new and there had never been a supermarket before, would we build something like we have today? Of course not."

—Kevin Ervin Kelley, Shook Kelley