Weis Markets Adding High-Tech Salad Bars to Pennsylvania, Maryland Stores

Regional grocer partners with Picadeli to offer next-level quick meal offerings

4/11/2024

Swedish salad company Picadeli is installing its high-tech salad bars at eight Weis Markets locations, starting with stores in York and Bellefonte, Pa.

Weis Markets and Picadeli have installed two new high-tech salad bars at Weis Markets locations in York and Bellefonte, Pa. The partnership includes plans to expand to six additional Pennsylvania and Maryland stores in the next few months.

Picadeli’s innovative salad bars offer such elevated options as plant-based proteins, grains, seafood and seasonal specialties. They also feature digital signage and touchscreens to display the nutritional value of all ingredients, as well as temperature-controlled food compartments that ensure optimal food safety and reduce waste.

“Picadeli is revolutionizing what to expect from salad bars, and we’re proud to bring their next-level quick meal offerings to our stores,” said Weis Markets SVP of Merchandising and Marketing Bob Gleeson. “By putting great emphasis on fresh ingredients, affordability, safety and sustainability, Picadeli, and our partnership with them, will support our mission to help our customers eat better, spend less and live healthily.”

The salads not only contain a rotating selection of fresh and unique ingredients, but they’re also more affordable than typical salad bar options, costing about $8 per salad. Additionally, food safety is prioritized through such features as hand sanitizer and bowl dispensers, sneeze guards, a mounting system for utensils to prevent contamination of allergenic foods, temperature and hood sensors, shielding hoods, and a patented air flow refrigeration system.

“Too often, Americans feel they need to make concessions when it comes to health, freshness, cost, sustainability or safety of their food in order to meet their standards for the others,” noted Patrik Hellstrand, CEO of Gothenburg, Sweden-based Picadeli. “Through this partnership with Weis Markets, we can offer food that hits all the marks through a brand that shoppers have trusted for more than 100 years.”

Weis Markets will reveal the six remaining locations of Picadeli salad bars throughout the next month. Picadeli has also recently installed its salad bars at stores operated by midwestern grocers Coborn’s and Schnucks.

Sunbury, Pa.-based Weis Markets operates roughly 200 stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and West Virginia. The company is No. 60 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. St. Louis-based Schnucks employs 12,000 associates at 115 stores across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and is No. 64 on The PG 100, while Cloud, Minn.-based Coborn’s, with nearly 10,000 employees and 77 grocery stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois, is No. 84 on PG’s list. Schnucks was also named among PG’s 2024 Top Regional Grocers.