Looking for a Pizza Peel

Happy New Year.

I hope you all rang in the New Year the way you wanted to. As for the Levitt family, we did what we have done for the past five years or so, homemade pizza, some board games and the kids fighting to stay awake until midnight (the three and a half year old made it until 10:45, the six year old 11:15).

As the chief pizza maker in the family, it is with great pride and pleasure that I prepare my pizzas. The only issue I have with the process is that I only have one pizza peel, thus can only make one small pizza at a time. Finally, I realized that if I buy another peel I can half the time it takes to prepare my pizza.

So, though too late for New Year’s, I headed to Wegmans to buy a second peel. To my great surprise there was none to be found. Now, I don’t shop the housewares section that often, but when I need a kitchen gadget, container or other food related nonfoods item (like a pizza peel) my first stop is always Wegmans—and more often than not they have what I am looking for.

Now, not only was there no pizza peel, it seemed to me that the entire housewares section was smaller. The store had been rearranged a bit, so maybe the different look was throwing me off, but I don’t think so.

It is no secret that certain nonfoods categories struggle to capture sales in grocery, but for years we have heard that if grocers just dedicate space to the proper categories they can make money.  

For years, Wegmans was a retailer that dedicated considerable time, effort and space to nonfoods products—and presumably did well in the category. Perhaps I am wrong, and the redesign of the store is just giving the allusion of a smaller section.

But…  if they are beginning to rethink and shrink their nonfoods strategy it is something to keep an eye on.