Breath Of Fresh Air

Brookshire's new 'hybrid' market aims to combine the best of traditional grocers and specialty stores for folks passionate about food.

"Fresh" is a word every grocer identifies with, but when you make it your name, you really mean business.

That's the idea behind Fresh by Brookshire's, a new concept store opened in March 2011 by Tyler, Texas-based Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC). The 55,000-square-foot market in Brookshire's headquarters city features a coffee and gelato bar, an artisan bakery, organic and gluten-free foods, bulk foods and expanded healthy living items, along with a pharmacy, floral department and bank, as well as a host of traditional grocery items and staples.

Part traditional grocer, part specialty store, part restaurant and part entertainment venue, Fresh by Brookshire's is impressing East Texas supermarket shoppers.

"We believed that, in Tyler, we had a unique opportunity for BGC to do something with food that had never been done before," says Rick Rayford, Brookshire's president and CEO. "We saw a real need here to initiate a new project that included more fresh foods than we had ever offered in any of our existing locations. We believe a huge benefit to the people of this community is that they are able to stay local, buy local foods and buy things that are sought by those with a passion for food."

In each of the store's departments, the focus is on natural, minimally processed foods. "We have a large selection of organics, a huge natural selection in our market, including a new beef offering — prime natural — and a made-from-scratch bakery," Rayford explains. "Items are made in-house every day with very few preservatives and with real ingredients."

Fresh offers what Brookshire's calls a "health food store within a store," featuring an extensive wellness department that includes vitamins, supplements, antioxidants and natural body, baby and skin care. "We have 32 linear feet of gluten-free items, including an extensive frozen selection," Rayford adds.

Proper Positioning

Fresh is set up to segment specialty and conventional via different shelving units in center store. "We use green gondolas for our conventional grocery items and metro shelves for specialty," Rayford explains. "We also segment our gluten-free selection and allocate specific space for specialty and special diet offerings in dairy and frozen foods."

In addition, the store has aligned its fresh food departments with the three entrances and corresponding checkstands to provide more convenient access for customers who wish to shop more frequently. "The goal was to give shoppers convenient ways to enter and exit the store based on their needs for that particular visit," Rayford says. "The main entrance and checkstand is designed to operate more like a traditional store, but we also have an entrance and express checkout on the 'fresh' side of the store — with quick access to produce, seafood, charcuterie and cheese — and on the foodservice side of the store, with quick access to the chef case, taco and sandwich bars, coffee bar, salad and soup bar."

The overall nontraditional positioning of the store serves other purposes as well: Its orientation, with the front of the store opposite the main highway and main parking away from the adjacent neighborhood, reduces light pollution. This orientation also "shows a commitment to the future development of the area when more businesses, homes and offices are located on the front side of the store," Rayford explains.

A large outdoor patio has become a community gathering spot, offering food along with live music on weekends. Allowing for large exterior green spaces that exceed local zoning requirements by 25 percent, the store incorporates a number of eco-friendly attributes.

Its roof acts as a water collection unit, feeding to a cistern that supplements the irrigation system; the landscaping itself is water-efficient. Sensory lighting adjusts according to the level of natural light brought in through skylights. Motion sensors in freezer and refrigerated cases turn lights on only if motion is detected in that aisle. Exposed wood on the exterior was obtained from a sustainable forest. And in a nod to history as well as sustainability, recycled brick from the first Brookshire's store that opened in 1928 is used as pavers in the floral area and parking lot.

Awarded last February, Fresh by Brookshire's is the company's first LEED-certified store and the first such designated supermarket in East Texas. The store received its highest rating in the area of construction waste, of which 98 percent was diverted from a landfill. "It is extremely rare to get a '5' in this area, an accomplishment we are extremely proud of," Rayford notes.

Hybrid Store

Fresh is a "next-generation grocery store that provides our guests with outstanding service, amazing world-class foods and specialty items while maintaining the convenience and affordability of a traditional grocery store," Rayford says, noting that the one thing setting it apart from competitors is its product selection. "We are a hybrid of a traditional grocer and a specialty store. Our guests can find products from all over the globe or around the corner. They can find foods prepared by a team of chefs that surpass any restaurant in terms of quality."

Expanding on that theme, Fresh is also a restaurant — its primary offering is the 801 Grill, which services the outdoor patio with traditional grill fare. "We also offer a sandwich bar, taco bar, and an extensive salad and soup bar," Rayford notes. The store's coffee bar serves various types of tea, coffee and smoothies, along with beer and wine by the glass under a restaurant license.

"The most rewarding aspect of this store is the reaction that we get from our guests when they find a product they have been searching for in Tyler or driving to larger metropolitan areas to get," Rayford says. "We constantly hear 'thank you' for bringing this type of selection and caliber of food to East Texas."

But the effort hasn't been without its challenges — the biggest, according to Rayford, being sourcing. "Our goal is to provide the freshest foods from all over the world, requiring Fresh to use non-traditional methods to acquire these products," he says. "Also, given the fact that Fresh operates departments — specifically, foodservice — that are new to BGC, we have had to invent the processes for setup and daily operations."

Those operations are administered by a team of associates dubbed "Freshies," charged with the responsibility to "engage every guest that walks through the door," Rayford says, explaining that Freshies are "inspired by [a] sense of family and community … They are trained to be department experts and achieve a sense of ownership in having a high level of knowledge in their areas. They are constantly inspired through team huddles, manager feedback and accolades."

Foodservice operations are staffed by a team of classically trained chefs, while department managers have extensive experience in their respective areas. "The knowledge of food at Fresh is immense," Rayford says. "Guests are encouraged to ask for detailed product information, recipes and cooking tips."

Beyond Food

Rayford says Fresh can offer Brookshire's supplier partners something that most other retail outlets cannot — the ability to test a new product or idea in a controlled environment and the ability to actively engage with the product's consumer. "Supplier partners constantly tell us how valuable it is to watch a guest try their product and react to it," he says. "They are able to gauge potential popularity of a new flavor or new product category or simply talk to the guest about their product and what makes it special. The uniqueness of our clientele make Fresh a great venue for this type of activity."

That clientele is treated to an experience that goes well beyond food. "Fresh is a community and entertainment destination," Rayford notes. "We offer local singers and songwriters the opportunity to perform on our patio every weekend. We host signature events throughout the year that focus on food from a particular region or genre," he says, citing the annual "Taste of Texas" that emphasizes products from the Lone Star State, including locally grown foods, guest chefs, bands and vendor partners, coupled with a steak cook-off fundraiser for the East Texas Food Bank.

"In times of high gas prices and busy lives, guests can get a great number of errands checked off at one time," Rayford says. "We not only have the offerings of a traditional grocery store but also have prepared foods, a coffee bar, a full-service pharmacy, a floral department, a bank and even a fuel center."

In so many ways, Fresh is a true "one-stop shop," and Brookshire's aims to make every stop a truly fulfilling experience.

"We believe a huge benefit to the people of this community is that they are able to stay local, buy local foods and buy things that are sought by those with a passion for food."

— Rick Rayford, president and CEO