ShopRite Expands Into New Markets

MARK HAMSTRA

ShopRite is expanding north and south, with new-store openings in Albany, N.Y., and two locations in Maryland.<p>

Last week ShopRite was scheduled to open its first location in the Albany, N.Y., market after vacating the area decades ago.

The store, a 55,000-square-foot location in the town of Niskayuna that had once been a Grand Union, was opened by ShopRite Supermarkets, the Wakefern Food Corp. subsidiary that operates the company’s 30 corporately owned ShopRites.

“This was a great location for us to take over,” Dave Figurelli, president of ShopRite Supermarkets, told SN. “We feel we have a lot to offer to the people in that market.”

The company is looking for additional opportunities in the market as well, he noted. The main competitors include Price Chopper, Hannaford Bros. and Wal-Mart Stores.

The opening in Niskayuna follows three other openings by the ShopRite Supermarkets division in the last 12 months in Westchester County, N.Y., Figurelli explained. Those stores had all previously been non-supermarket retail spaces that were converted.

The debut of the new, northernmost ShopRite followed by just a few months the opening of two new ShopRites at the southern reaches of the chain’s network, in Timonium and White Oak, Md. Those stores are operated by Springfield, N.J.-based Village Super Market, which is Wakefern’s second largest member and previously had operated 26 locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Bill Sumas, vice chairman of Village, said his company selected “some of the best people” from its stores in New Jersey to help run the new stores, and the Sumas family also travels to visit the stores regularly.

“It’s going to be a journey to where people will understand our way of doing business,” he explained.

The stores compete with Giant of Landover, Safeway, Wegmans, Wal-Mart and others, but Sumas said he expects to grow in the region.

“We feel very confident over a period of time we will be the dominant player there,” he said.