1st Ground-up N.Y. Market 32 Debuts
The Golub Corp. has opened its first ground-up Market 32 in New York state in Ft. Edward. Built on a fully remediated brownfield site, the new supermarket is the first in the town since 2003.
The night before the official Jan. 10 opening, a catered preview party held in the store the night before drew several hundred attendees and raised thousands of dollars for local charities.
“Market 32 is a contemporary, food-focused concept store that reflects what our customers have told us they want in a modern and convenient shopping experience,” said Golub Corp. President and CEO Scott Grimmett. “Our Ft. Edward Market 32 is a grocery store for this and future generations. While maintaining our focus on quality and value, we’ve added a host of wonderful signature items throughout the store, plus modern conveniences like customized prepared foods, a café equipped with Wi-Fi, a full-service pharmacy with a drive-through, a Chef’s Table offering food demonstrations and sampling, and a new, higher standard of service.”
Additional features of the more than 41,000-square-foot store include a full-service drive-through pharmacy, an expanded specialty cheese department, a range of prepared foods, and a floral department. The location employs 170 full- and part-time associates.
“This Market 32 reflects the newest and best ideas that we’ve gotten from our customers,” added Grimmett.
Boasting a more modern look and feel than traditional Price Chopper stores, Market 32 locations offer a spacious décor marked by soft earth tones and product-focused displays, murals and lighting, with an emphasis on convenient, ready-to-eat foods; fresh, handcrafted, and locally grown, produced and manufactured products; and intuitive product/department adjacencies.
The Ft. Edward store is the 12th to open since the company revealed plans to develop the brand across the majority of its locations. So far, 10 Price Chopper stores have been converted to the Market 32 banner, while three have been built from the ground up in Sutton, Mass. (opened in October 2015); Oxford, Conn. (in September 2016); and now Ft. Edward.
According to the company, several conversions are currently underway across the chain’s six-state footprint, and another new ground-up store is scheduled for Clifton Park, N.Y., in 2017.
Based in Schenectady, N.Y., the Golub Corp. owns and operates 136 Price Chopper and Market 32 grocery stores in New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Golub’s 20,000 associates collectively own more than 47 percent of the company’s privately held stock, making it one of the nation’s largest privately held corporations that is predominantly employee-owned.