Wegmans To Build Culinary Center

KATE FLEISHER

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Wegmans Food Markets plans to produce one-of-a-kind food products at a $28 million central kitchen that's been billed as a culinary innovation center.

Next month, the town of Chili, south of company headquarters in the Rochester suburb of Gates, will review an amended site plan application for an estimated 38,000-square-foot central kitchen facility that one food industry consultant described as “cutting edge” for supermarkets.

If approved as amended, the one-story facility will sit on a 5.2-acre site within the 200-acre Wegmans Distribution Center complex adjacent to the Greater Rochester International Airport. Costich Engineering, Rochester, prepared the site plan, which originally called for a 24,000-square-foot facility.

Known as an industry trendsetter, the privately held chain of 71 stores turned down SN's request for comment on the plans. Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale cited company policy in declining to comment to SN on “inner workings of the company and strategies.”

Natale was quoted by local media as saying the new center will be used “to produce products that are unique and different.”

The scope of the retailer's plans and size of its investment are out of the ordinary for a supermarket chain, one industry observer noted.

“I don't know of any supermarket making that level of commitment,” said Ira Blumenthal, business development consultant and president of Atlanta-based Co-Opportunities, and executive-in-residence at Georgia State University's School of Hospitality.

With plans to spend $28 million, Wegmans will be making a huge investment, he said. Smaller industry facilities focused on “taste panels and testing” are far more common.

The concept of a research and development commissary would be expected of companies like Compass Corp. North America in Charlotte, N.C., Blumenthal pointed out. Compass and companies like it work with food manufacturers and restaurants like McDonald's or Chili's on signature products.

Blumenthal likened the scope of the retailer's strategy to a “bona fide, roll-up-the-sleeves effort to develop new products.” It makes sense for an innovator like Wegmans to embark on this type of project, he added.

Supermarkets have to connect with “double-income couples who are not cooking but assembling and warming, and Wegmans seems to be saying that maybe available manufactured products aren't enough” to do that, he said. “Wegmans is slanting big-time resources to manufacturing development.”

A Wegmans “do-it-yourself approach” to developing niche products on a small scale also makes sense, he said, given that manufacturers rely on line flow — rapid, continuous, long-run production of identical product — geared to nationwide retail chains. Wegmans is a regional company with stores in the Mid-Atlantic states.

The company appears to be planning a facility for “developing and crafting products, packaging and programs that are consumer-centric vs. mass production-centric,” Blumenthal said. “To allocate $28 million in a flat economy — that's a big chunk of money. I expect they've done a lot of due diligence. It's very visionary and with [Wegmans'] track record, I'd expect the center to be very successful and profitable.”