With online supermarkets becoming increasingly convenient, supermarket owners are encountering the need to refine the unique appeal of their physical stores in order to attract customers. This article looks for hints from exceptional U.S. supermarkets on how to improve the characteristics and unique attractiveness of their stores.

The Fresh Market opened its 161st store on September 13, 2023 in the south Florida city of Port St. Lucie. The 2,176-square-meter store features a wide selection of locally grown produce, imported foods, dry-aged meat, and a face-to-face fresh fish counter offering whole and filleted fish sourced from local fishing ports. It also includes their in-store deli-restaurant concept, The Square, which serves freshly prepared food to order.
Soon after its opening it became one of the five top-selling stores in the entire The Fresh Market chain.
Founders Ray and Beverly Berry opened the first The Fresh Market store in Greensboro, North Carolina in March 1982. At the time, undecorated, warehouse-type supermarkets with large displays of merchandise were popular in the U.S. However, the Berrys wanted to offer a more intimate and personalized shopping experience, with the atmosphere of the open, European-style food markets they had seen on a trip to Europe.

They created The Fresh Market's first store incorporating the essence of such an open food market: locally grown vegetables, face-to-face meat and fish counters, bins of freshly roasted coffee beans, and even a flower stand. The store was very well received by the community.
The first store became the blueprint for the series of stores that followed. Today, The Fresh Market operates in 22 states across the U.S., with the 161st store still capturing the essence of the first store.

In September 2023 The Fresh Market was voted No.1 on USA Today's annual 10 Best Readers' Choice Awards “Best Grocery Store" list, with No.2 going to Hy-Vee and No.3 to Stew Leonard's. It was the third consecutive year for The Fresh Market to take the top position. The rankings were decided based on responses from the newspaper's readers, who voted on the food retailers they thought offered the best value, selection, and service. The Fresh Market was also voted No.1 for "Best Grocery Store Bakery" and "Best Grocery Store Deli.”

The Square is the highlight of The Fresh Market's deli department. The story behind the development of The Square is part of the reason why The Fresh Market is so highly rated.
Plans were made to renovate the company's original store on Lawndale Drive in Greensboro. Sales in the deli department were so strong that a major overhaul seemed unnecessary, but the decision was made to take things to the next level by introducing a new restaurant menu and presentation method. And this sparked the development of The Square. For the new menu, which included BBQ, pizza, made-to-order smoothies, and sandwiches, 70% was developed by outside chefs and 30% by in-house chefs. The renovated store was reopened in October of 2021 and even after the reopening, they continued to make improvements based on customer purchasing trends. For example, they incorporated a way for customizing the menu after realizing this was something customers wanted.

The Square became so successful it was introduced into other stores, including a new store in Palm Beach, Florida opened in April 2022. This store, however, did not offer breakfast biscuits, the second most popular item after barbecue, because trials at their other Florida stores showed that biscuits were not popular in the southern part of the state.
Customers love The Fresh Market because the chain is not satisfied with resting on its laurels and continues to introduce new ways of doing things. And, even after introducing these new methods, they continue to make improvements. The Fresh Market is also known for paying meticulous attention the needs of each region they operate in.

The Fresh Market is highly rated by its customers, but management has seen its share of twists and turns over the past 10 years. The company was listed on NASDAQ in 2010 and was acquired by the major investment fund Apollo Global Management in 2016. Subsequently, Chile-based retail conglomerate Cencosud acquired 67% of The Fresh Market shares in July 2022 (Apollo and other minority shareholders retain the remaining 33%). In total, the company has undergone three CEO changes since 2016.
Despite these successive changes in management structure, The Fresh Market has enjoyed the continued support of its customers because it has not wavered from its corporate philosophy and approach to store development.
From this perspective, it is less of a challenge for family-owned or employee-owned companies to stick to their corporate philosophy and principles. And, it goes without saying that, if the corporate philosophy continues to permeate the entire organization, a company is able to provide a superior customer experience regardless of the management structure.
In addition to the 10Best Readers' Choice Awards mentioned above, there are several other surveys in the U.S. that evaluate supermarkets. Often seen in such surveys alongside the discounter Aldi and the supermarket giant Kroger, are family-owned chains such as Stew Leonard's, Wegmans, and H-E-B, and employee-owned chains such as Publix and Hy-Vee.
For example, in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey developed by the University of Michigan, Costco, H-E-B, and Publix shared the No.1 position. Other companies in the top 20 included Wegmans and Hy-Vee.
While many of these companies are familiar names even in Japan, Hy-Vee may be a name that is less well-known. Founded in 1930 in Iowa, the company now operates 285 stores in eight Midwestern states, with sales of $12 billion (approx. 1.8 trillion yen). The company's stock is held by its managers and more than 40,000 employees, or about half of the company's workforce, through its defined contribution 401(k) plan. According to the company, this gives many of its employees the strong feeling that “Hy-Vee is my company." Newsweek ranked Hy-Vee among the top five in their “America’s Most Trusted Grocery Retailers” survey in 2022.

The latest ACSI results show that overall supermarket customer satisfaction is on the rise. The overall supermarket customer satisfaction index rose from 76 in 2023 to 79 in 2024. Moreover, the index for all customer experience benchmarks, from fundamental criteria related to the operation of the physical stores to criteria related to e-commerce and apps, exceeded the previous year's levels. Among these benchmarks, the increase in "Ability to provide brand names," "Availability of merchandise (inventory stocks)," "Quality and freshness of meat and produce," and "Frequency of sales and promotions" showed that customer satisfaction with the ability of supermarkets to provide desired products with reliable quality and affordable prices without product shortages has increased.
While overall supermarket customer satisfaction has increased, these benchmarks are still only the minimum required for offering a superior customer experience. Regularly frequented supermarkets with high consumer ratings, such as The Fresh Market and Hy-Vee, compete by offering their own unique customer experience on top of the abovementioned benchmarks.
The Fresh Market is facing competition in Florida from Publix, which is based in that state. Florida is one of the states where The Fresh Market is focusing on new store openings. Publix is not only defending its in-state business, but is also expanding northward along the eastern coast of the U.S. It is already competing in several locations in Virginia with Wegmans, which is expanding southward out of New York state. In addition to competing with Wegmans, Publix is going head-to-head in Virginia with Kroger, Aldi, and Trader Joe's, all of which are highly rated by their customers.
Exceptional supermarket chains, which have enjoyed strong support from the customer bases in their respective regions up to now, have started to compete directly in terms of the quality of the customer experience they offer. What will be the deciding factor in who wins out? Only time will tell.