BYERLY'S WHOLE-HEALTH STORE STRATEGY MAY BLOOM IN FALL

MATTHEW W. EVANS

EDINA, Minn. -- Byerly's Inc., a subsidiary of Lund Food Holdings Inc., both based here, could debut its version of a whole-health marketing strategy later this fall.

Bea James, Byerly's whole-health manager, who was hired to direct the program, told SN it was still too early to provide details about the plan and that nothing would happen until after September. "We're still in the developmental stages. We don't want to [give details] until everything is in place," she said.

Industry sources believe Byerly's will approach its whole-health strategy in a storewide manner rather than by creating a whole-health destination within each store. "From what I understand," one source stated, "it's going to be integrated throughout their stores; it's not going to be any store-within-a-store. It's creating their whole store more as a destination for healthy shopping."

James admitted that Byerly's approach to whole-health will be more comprehensive. The strategy will be a "unique, innovative and aggressive approach," she said, adding that "it's not all about food; there's a tie-in for the whole store."

She indicated there may be a special designation by saying, "We're doing a trademark search on our name."