Meijer's Bridge Street Market Focused on Local in 1st Year
Meijer's first neighborhood market store, Bridge Street Market, in Grand Rapids, Mich., has been open for a year and is getting positive feedback on its local offerings. The grocer now carries more than 5,000 Michigan products, an increase of 33 percent throughout the year.
"Bridge Street Market was new territory for us but has proven to be a successful way to serve our community," said Ken Bair, store manager. "From the onset, the team embraced the West Side's heritage and listened to our customers to ensure we had the best products on our shelves. It's been a great year."
The location is a smaller footprint than traditional Meijer supercenters, at approximately 40,000 square feet, and focuses solely on groceries, particularly fresh and local. Notably, the grocer identifies local products as those from Michigan for its neighborhood market, while local at traditional Meijer stores means from any of the six states where they're located.
The Bridge Street Market store has 130 feet of vegan products, carries an average of 220 organic produce items each week and this past year sold more sushi than any Meijer store in the Midwest.
Meijer plans to open six urban-format, neighborhood market stores by 2021. Earlier this week, the company unveiled Woodward Corner Market, currently under construction in a Detroit suburb.
To celebrate its one-year anniversary, Bridge Street Market will offer a variety of in-store activities, among them vendor demos, live screen printing, cupcake decorating, a photobooth and face painting.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Meijer operates more than 240 supercenters and grocery stores throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin. The company is No. 7 on Progressive Grocer's 2019 Super 50 list of the top grocers in the United States.
