Industry Intelligence

Wakefern Food Corp. will supply Food Bazaar Supermarkets’ dairy, frozen food, grocery, HBC, nonfoods and specialty grocery product needs for its 16 locations throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Additionally, Food Bazaar will offer Wakefern’s ShopRite private label line of products, including the Specialty Imported product line, in all of its stores.

According to Jim Tracy, VP of wholesale for Keasbey, N.J.-based Wakefern, the company anticipated “expanding this relationship to include all of our perishable products as well.”

For more than 60 years, Wakefern has provided wholesale services to independent retailers. The company provides its domestic and international wholesale customers with a broad product offering, private label brand development, a warehousing and distribution network, procurement power, and a comprehensive knowledge of the retail environment.

“We are confident that with this new partnership with Wakefern, Food Bazaar will be better positioned to offer an enhanced shopping experience to our customers,” noted Spencer An, SVP of Bogopa Service Corp., the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based operator of Food Bazaar. “We can now focus our attention and resources on our future growth plans as well as expanding into new locations. More importantly, this agreement means that our customers will be able to benefit from the wide assortment of products and services offered by Wakefern, and expect to see the same great prices for products that they are accustomed to seeing at Food Bazaar.”

For more information on Wakefern’s wholesale services, prospective wholesale partners can call Tracy at 732-906-5934.

The largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States, Wakefern now comprises 47 members who individually own and operate more than 240 supermarkets under the ShopRite banner in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. The company also operates 47 PriceRite stores in five states. As the merchandising and distribution arm of both ShopRite and PriceRite, Wakefern, along with its member companies, employs more than 50,000 people. In addition, Wakefern distributes products to other supermarkets throughout the northeastern United States and Bermuda.