By Justin Webster Hillphoenix Design Center Specialist On September 22-23, Hillphoenix hosted Supermarket Sense, a gathering of industry experts designed to educate food retailers about current and future trends — and how to make the most of them. One of the sessions I led was called “How to Engage Customers and Increase Shopper Dependency.” We covered everything from shopper loyalty [...]
By Jonathan Tan, VP Energy Services The AMS Group, Hillphoenix There are more than 152,000 convenience stores in the U.S. and about 80 percent of them sell gas. The food retail part of the business alone makes these stores energy intensive. Across the industry, food stores use an average of 51.5 kilowatt-hours per square foot – more than any other [...]
By Jonathan Tan, VP Energy Services The AMS Group, Hillphoenix Download Infographic Supermarkets are the most electricity-intensive commercial buildings, using an average of 51.5 kilowatt-hours per square foot per year at a cost of about $3.70 per square foot per year. In terms of operating budget, energy is the second largest expense for food retailers after labor. In fact, given [...]
By Jack Sjogren Hillphoenix Design Center Specialist Here’s a great story about the power of lighting and proper merchandising. Driscoll’s, one of the world’s largest distributors of fresh berries, wanted to amp up sales from its “Berry Patch” displays, which it creates for select partner retailers. Each Berry Patch features strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries merchandised in a refrigerated display [...]
By Henry Pellerin Hillphoenix Vice President of Marketing As traditional food-selling lines crisscross and blur — think grocerant — retailers increasingly seek insights from vendors with a view across multiple environments. At Hillphoenix, we have that broad view because our people are on the ground in traditional supermarkets, convenience stores and meal-oriented small-format operations. We transform what we learn in [...]
By Kim Camp, Learning Center Programs Manager and Justin Webster, Hillphoenix Design Center Specialist Grocery shoppers love the convenience and variety of ready-to-eat meals. In response, about 75% of food retailers plan to set up self-service bars by early next year, according to a Supermarket News survey published in April. But hot food program newbies have a few things to [...]
By Mark DiDomenico Datassential, Inc. Today’s consumer is much more engaged with the foods and beverages they consume. Subsequently, they are driving faster adoption of trends. Nowhere is this more evident than in the restaurant channel, where operators are challenged with developing new and enticing menu options for their patrons’ ever evolving tastes. Those trends are also providing great challenges [...]
By Jack Sjogren Hillphoenix Design Center Specialist Using proper lighting inside and around closed-door refrigerated cases turns glass-fronted coolers into gallery-worthy display spaces. That increases the value of your investment in high-visibility cases, such as the Clarity line from Hillphoenix. And it ensures your closed cases not only offer energy savings and product longevity, but also show merchandise at its [...]
By Kelly Sayko Hillphoenix Case Division Product Manager One-size-fits-all refrigeration equipment won’t work in today’s supermarkets, which come in all shapes and styles. What’s more, the growing popularity of store-within-a-store destination areas means a one-size refrigeration strategy may not even work across a single store. These days, grocers need refrigeration equipment that’s flexible, and Hillphoenix’s Clarity line was designed with [...]
By Jack Sjogren Hillphoenix Design Center Specialist The right lights produce results. Just ask the owners of this supermarket in Crestline, California, a summer tourist area. Our Hillphoenix team helped them rethink lighting in the store’s meat department, and over three months departmental sales jumped 15% compared to the same three months the year before. (That sales boost came after [...]