NEW YORK -- Supervalu plans to launch a new brand-awareness campaign for Save-A-Lot focusing on the message that "big savings come in small boxes," Yolanda Scharton, vice president, investor relations and communications, told an investor conference here last week.
Scharton also previewed the new produce distribution business Supervalu plans to launch later this year in which it will aggregate produce for customers across the Midwest at a single facility to compete with specialized produce distributors who service the grocery industry on a regional basis -- a program "for which we have national aspirations," she said. (See story on Page 1.)
Scharton spoke at the 29th annual Retailing Leaders conference sponsored here by Merrill Lynch. Supervalu is a wholesale and retail distributor based in Minneapolis.
Discussing the company's forthcoming ad campaign for Save-A-Lot, Supervalu's extreme-value format, Scharton said, "People in the U.S. are conditioned, because of operators like Wal-Mart, to think savings come in big boxes, whereas in Europe, discounters commonly operate with small boxes. So the challenge Save-A-Lot faces is to build consumer awareness that big savings come in small boxes, and we plan to use that message in a national advertising campaign."
Scharton also spoke about Supervalu's plans to increase its involvement with third-party logistics -- an effort that it has practiced for many years, operating three distribution centers for Kroger and other companies, and that it accelerated earlier in the year when it acquired Total Logistics, a Milwaukee-based provider of warehousing and distribution services. "The goal is for third-party logistics to become a larger piece of our business," she explained.
Supervalu also wants to help consolidate the third-party logistics business, Scharton added. "While organic growth will be our primary goal, we may also allocate money for acquisitions in that highly fragmented business," she said.
"Eighty per cent of the Fortune 500 companies outsource a portion of their supply-chain business, and Supervalu is at the center of that trend and ideally positioned to capitalize on it in the grocery industry and possibly other industries as well," she explained. "Our message to these companies is, if their competency is in manufacturing, retailing, marketing or merchandising, then the piece in the middle -- distribution -- may not be their competency, whereas Supervalu is hard-wired for those functions in the grocery channel and beyond."
