Supervalu aims to surprise and delight shoppers

Fresh off of their recent acquisition of the Albertson's grocery chain, Supervalu CEO Jeff Noddle announced an ambitious plan to spend $1 billion in the coming years to remodel existing stores and build a few new ones under a new program called Premium Fresh & Healthy. The goal, according to Duncan Mac Naughton, EVP of Merchandising Marketing, "is all about surprising and delighting the customer," which will apparently include things like:

[expanding the stores'] produce, meat, seafood, bakery and deli departments. Stores remodeled or built under the new plan will also have an area for international foods, since 24 percent of Americans eat at least one ethnic meal a week, Mac Naughton said.

Supervalu is also pushing to focus on natural and organic products, which have become quite popular for mainstream grocers in the past few years after the rapid growth of specialty chains such as Whole Foods Market Inc.

While it certainly remains to be seen exactly how the chain expects to delight their shoppers, I'm hoping that they'll introduce some new innovations for making grocery shopping faster and more convenient (and you can always spot the good innovations because they spread through the whole industry like wildfire :)

Tags: digital signage, store experience, retail media, in-store media, merchandising, retail marketing, advertising, visual merchandising