The Magic of Macey’s 2018-01-01 (1)

Have you ever had an Ultimate Kong Kone?

If not, you do not know what you are missing.

It is a cake cone filled with one pound of vanilla, chocolate or vanilla/chocolate swirl high-quality Farr Better brand soft-serve ice cream. Towering nearly a foot high, an Ultimate Kong Kone can be had for the unbelievable price of only $1.89—and it is available exclusively at Macey’s, a 12-unit supermarket banner operated by Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City. 

For shoppers with smaller appetites—or maybe watching their waistlines—Macey’s also offers a smaller Daddy Kong Kone for $1.49, Momma Kong Kone for 99-cents and even a Baby Kong Kone for 59-cents.

“The Kong Kone is one of the most meaningful differentiators for our shoppers,” says Jason Sokol, vice president of marketing, at Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City. “You can walk into any of our Macey’s stores any night of the week, and it literally has become a destination for the Kong Kone. Families far and wide come in just to have a Kong Kone. When moms come into our store they don’t for a minute hesitate to pick up a Kong Kone for their kids to enjoy while they are shopping.”       

There is even a Kong Kone contest.

“In mid-August we did a Kong Kone ice cream eating contest,” says Craig Howard, store director of the South Ogden Macey’s store. “An older contestant won by eating an entire Ultimate Kong Kone in just one minute and 40 seconds.”

That is just one way the Macey’s in South Ogden, Utah is getting its licks in against formidable competition that includes Walmart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Clubs, as well as Super Target, Costco and the Smith’s Food & Drug division of Kroger.

This spring, the inside of the more than twenty-year-old South Ogden Macey’s underwent a $1.3 million makeover that brought new décor, fixtures, greatly expanded perishables departments and a new layout—the store’s exterior will soon be remodeled by its landlord—and everything was done in record time.

“We finished the entire remodel in five weeks,” Howard says. “Since we remodeled we have seen an increase in our customer count and average ticket sale.”

South Ogden was the last of the Macey’s stores to be remodeled by Associated, which also owns the corporate Fresh Market, Dan’s, Lin’s and Dick’s Fresh Market chains, and supplies more than 400 independent stores, including Harmons. 

“We knew Macey’s had become dated and quite a few of its stores had not been renovated for 10 or 15 years,” Sokol says. “We wanted to do something meaningful for our shoppers, so about two years ago we spent six months in focus groups and doing quantitative studies with our Macey’s shoppers to better identify who they were and to build a store that they wanted.

“We identified a bunch of new ways that we wanted to approach our shopper, so we started with a brand new tagline, ‘Happy Shopping,’” Sokol says. “We used that as our springboard into building this great store experience for that shopper.”

Although senior citizens frequent Macey’s, “that shopper” is a busy, younger mom with four or five kids. “She is definitely a value shopper, and Macey’s has become very associated with value,” Sokol says.

He is not just referring to monetary values, but also family values. Many of the store’s customers are deeply religious Mormons, which is why Macey’s, along with Dick’s Fresh Market, is closed on Sundays.

A division of Associated since 1999, Macey’s differentiated itself from the competition by being more of a barebones warehouse format, with an equally barebones white and gray color scheme.

“We realized we needed to give this brand a facelift,” Sokol says. “We re-built the store with a much more feminine touch, which sets it apart from a lot of grocery stores, not only in this market but nationally. That includes everything from our color palette to our new mascot Kong. We definitely wanted to create a store that appealed to that young mom and families.”

Kong debuted in 2012, replacing the Macey’s Moose, and its presence has been expanding throughout the store. In addition to costume character in-store appearances, it adorns private label products including jumbo bags of Kong Korn popcorn, Kong cereal and big buckets of ice cream.

“Macey’s, in the past, was known for having a big assortment of its own branded items and this really gives us an opportunity to get back into those exclusive offering for our shoppers that they’ll drive out of their way for,” Sokol says.          

When shoppers walk through the door they are greeted with a small floral department and a bank of refrigerated coffin cases merchandising produce, meats and other perishables on special that week.

“This whole area was check stands, so we opened it up and have more of a fresh image upfront now with coolers, produce, deli and bakery,” Howard says. “It portrays more of a fresh image when people come into the store.”

Treasure Aisle

The area along the front wall of the store has been christened the Treasure Aisle.

“For years, internally we called it the ‘Deal Wall’ but there was never really a name for that area,” Sokol says. “We rebranded it the Treasure Aisle. We wanted to create a treasure hunt area for shoppers to go to. Traditionally it has been used mainly for case goods of groceries, but over the last year or two we’ve been trying to introduce not just what you’d find in a warehouse, but some treasure hunt opportunities with unique items.”

Like the Doing More with S’Mores kit, a cardboard box containing a six-pack of Hershey’s Bars, box of graham crackers and bag of marshmallows, that was on display in late summer. “That is something corporate thought up,” Howard says. “And when you buy the box of ingredients you get the roasting stick for free. That is a good deal and we’ve been selling a lot of those.”      

Its fall counterpart is the Maceys Ultimate Tailgater Box filled with a 2-liter bottle of Coke, Clover Club chips, Jack Link’s jerky, Tostitos salsa, Cheese Nips, Keebler cookies, Chex Mix and other snacks for only $9.99.

In September, a good chunk of the Treasure Aisle was devoted to Macey’s semi-annual Case Lot Sale. “Utah is unique because the Mormon Church stresses home food storage, and whenever they have a conference and talk about it at church the people go out and buy,” Howard says. “We typically go through six or seven truckloads.”       

While many shoppers do stock up by the case, during Case Lot they can also buy one or two cans for the same hot price, Howard says.

The savings really add up when they use their Maceys Perks Reward Card, also available for iPhone and Android devices. “For every dollar shoppers spend they get a point, and when they get a certain number of points $15 is added to their wallet along with special digital coupons,” Howard says. “We’ll have weekend specials exclusive to those Maceys Perks members.”

The Treasure Aisle department leads into a vastly expanded corridor of the service deli, bakery and produce departments. The direction of the cheese case was changed and more bakery tables were added to boost the store’s perishables image.

“We took out some grocery aisles to expand perishables, but we really didn’t get rid of anything,” Howard says. “Management did their homework, went through, looked at the SKUs and reduced facings or took out a few items that did not have any movement.”

One key new addition is the sushi case, located in the Delicious Delicatessen area.

“I didn’t think people would buy sushi, but we are doing $300 to $400 a day in sushi. It just blows me away,” Howard says.

“As part of the remodel we also added more refrigerated cases for our pre-made stuff, the sandwiches, pizzas and cold chicken,” he adds. “Our sales increases are running anywhere from 25 to 30 percent in that area.” 

Scratch bakery

The remodel moved Macey’s famed scratch bakery from a somewhat hidden spot in the far back end corner to a prominent post in the middle of the perishables wall.

Marked with a signature blue and white awning, the department is designed to evoke a corner bake shop feel.

“We deal with a lot of competitors in this market that are using bake-off and we made the investment years ago to have Macey’s stores bake from scratch,” Sokol says. “We wanted to really accentuate that by having the feel within our store of a store-within-a-store concept.”

A large stainless steel table visible from the sales floor was installed so shoppers could watch associates bake and decorate cakes, cookies and other treats. Specialties include scratch-made bagels, cakes, pies, cookies and donuts, including the Frisbee-size Texas Donut.

Macey’s is also famous for its apple fritters.

“We have a Fritter Friday and sell apple fritters for 69-cents,” Howard says. “That is unique to Macey’s and has just been awesome for us.”

The produce department is now housed in the rear of the store in an expanded area that also encompasses the bakery’s former home.

“The biggest, most drastic change is that we opened up this whole fresh side of the store,” Howard says. “We changed the floor tiles from white to a tan or earthtone. We re-skinned all the cases from their drab gray and white, and to conserve energy we put doors on the produce and dairy cases.”

An in-store fresh cut produce case was added, and sales have exceeded expectations, Howard says.

“Our salsa is one of the things we make from scratch here,” Howard says. “We have a regular salsa and a mango salsa and it is really good stuff.”

The remodel brought a larger selection to the meat department, housed along the back wall. Chicken and meats are hand-trimmed in-house. Service meat and seafood cases were added, set off by a wood-look plank tile floor.

“We hadn’t had service meat before, so people are gradually getting used to it,” Howard says, noting that the stuffed hot peppers, stuffed chicken breast and stuffed mushrooms have been selling particularly well.

Seafood, however, has been a bit of a challenge.

“People buy breaded fish out here, but we haven’t been doing too much through our service fish case yet,” Howard says. “They’ll buy a little bit of it, but the breaded stuff, if we put it on sale, they’ll hit it hard.”

Packaged meats run up one of the grocery aisles, across from the center of the meat department. As part of the remodel they too are merchandised behind glass doors. “I was worried about how the customers would react to the doors, but the doors actually dress it up a bit,” Howard says. “The customers like the doors because it showcases the product, especially with the LED lights in the cases; the fluorescents don’t do that.”

The grocery aisles still maintain high warehouse-style shelves, with top shelf storage space.

To court Ogden’s growing Hispanic population, a full aisle of Hispanic merchandise was added containing both imported and domestic groceries and nonfoods items, including bags of powdered detergents and votive candles.

The frozen food section was expanded to include “Utah’s largest selection of ice cream,” according to department signage. “As we were working on updating the brand, we were trying to find destination categories throughout the store,” Sokol says. “Utah is very well known for having a love of ice cream. We wanted to capitalize on that, so we introduced new décor to set the aisle off and then introduced new lines of ice cream and expanded our sets to address it.”

Soft drinks are another destination category. “We moved the beverages from the middle of the store to the last aisle,” Howard says. “We named it Beverage Boulevard and are merchandising them with chips and other snacks. It is one of the biggest culture shocks to our guests because they were used to finding pop in the middle of the store.”

The pharmacy department maintained its old home at the front of the store, but the décor was dramatically updated to include a warm purple and lavender color scheme accentuated with giant photos of smiling, happy, healthy families.

“The pharmacy used to be very plain with Styrofoam letters that spelled out P-H-A-R-M-A-C-Y,” Howard says, adding that pharmacy sales have gone up “substantially” since the remodel. As a result, the department has been holding its own against Walgreens, and Howard does not think the CVS going up across the street will have much of an impact on business either.

As for that other, slightly more famous, retailer with a similar name, Howard admits there is sometimes confusion.

“There is a Macy’s over in the mall in Layton and we’ll have guests come in with a coupon wanting to buy Levi’s or something,” Howard says. “I have to tell them they want the department store down in the mall.” 

Day of Rest

Sunday has become the busiest shopping day of the week for many supermarkets—but not Macey’s. The chain closes its doors on Sunday and has ever since it was founded decades ago by Ken Macey.

“Believe it or not, we get those people that shop our store because we are closed on Sunday and they like it,” says Craig Howard, store director of Maceys’ South Ogden, Utah location.

Many of those customers are Mormons.

“We continue to get a lot of shopper feedback that part of the reason they shop our stores is because it aligns with some of their values and beliefs,” says Jason, Sokol, vice president of marketing, Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City, which has owned Macey’s since 1999.

To compensate for some traffic that may be lost to Smith’s, Walmart and other chains operating on the day of rest, Macey’s management has created “Double Ad Monday” where the previous week’s specials are still valid on the first day of the new sales period.

“I remembered when we started it we didn’t know how it would do, but now our Monday business is like a Saturday,” Howard says. “It is just phenomenal! Our Mondays are big and our volume is good.”        

Banking on Business Connections

One way Macey’s has endeared itself to the community—and beefed up sales—is by establishing partnerships with local businesses and charities.

One of them is the Bank of Utah, headquartered in downtown Ogden. Macey’s has catered its company picnics for the past three years. “They do a big barbecue for each of their branches, do a different branch each day, spend five days doing it, and get all their food from me” says Craig Howard, store director for Macey’s South Ogden store.

The partnership came about when Darrel May, the bank’s senior vice president and human resources manager, approached Howard and asked if he could do a tasting of the store’s wares.

“He first went to Smith’s and a couple of other stores. I think the thing was they didn’t want to pull the items for him,” Howard says.

“He comes in and samples all of the salads in our deli and picks out which ones he wants.” This past summer May selected the Fire Roasted Corn Salad and Parmesan Bow Tie. “We then have the deli make the salads, my team in the bakery gets the rolls ready and the produce team cuts the fruit,” Howard says.

“It was a $4,500 order that week,” Howard says. “Plus, it is great advertising because people that work in the branches will come up here and ask for the items. For example, Darrel wanted a single-serve cake that we have in the bakery. We gave him a price break on it and made white, German Chocolate and Snickers cakes. I now have people coming up to us wanting those particular single-serve cakes.”

A similar partnership has developed with Catholic Community Services, which supports the St. Ann’s Homeless Shelter in town. “They do a brunch for Mother’s Day. We furnished the fruit—and then that got out, so it is just word of mouth. They also found out that we make scratch bagels, while a lot of other places in town put out frozen,” Howard says.