When word gets out that a major snowstorm is imminent, supermarkets go into “all hands on deck mode” as shoppers flood the store to stock up on basic supplies. So the turnout at the newly renovated Hannaford store and pharmacy on Route 9W in Highland last weekend wasn’t quite the festive crowd that manager Jeremy Sawyer had in mind for the store’s Grand Reopening Celebration. “Yesterday we did 40 percent more business than a normal Thursday,” Sawyer said fretfully on the Friday before the blizzard was poised to strike. “It’ll be a ghost town on Sunday.”
The Hannaford staff was kept hopping, restocking shelves, handing out product samples and answering customers’ questions. Many, even longtime patrons, needed reorientation, since the entire layout of the place had been reorganized during the remodel process. “Just about everything is new that you see. The whole store was touched,” said Sawyer.
The renovation began in February 2018, necessitating shortening of the store’s regular 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. hours to a 9:30 p.m. closing to accommodate construction. “We stayed open the whole time. That was the biggest challenge for us, and a big challenge for our customers as well.” According to Sawyer, a squad of “Hannaford Navigators” was deployed throughout the store at all times to help customers find what they were looking for in unfamiliar places.
Major construction went on until November, and minor touch-ups were still being applied just days before the official Grand Reopening launch on Friday, January 18. The customer appreciation festivities will go on for four weekends, with the first week spotlighting new items, the second week local vendors, the third health and wellness and the fourth a new service called Hannaford to Go.
The latter has not been offered by the Highland store in the past, and required the construction of a special room for the assembly of grocery orders for pickup. Customers can now place their orders online for a specified arrival time, then park in one of six specially designated parking spaces and phone the Hannaford to Go number. A store employee will then bring the completed order directly to their car, where the transaction is completed via Mobile Pay card scanner.
Also located in the parking lot is a hut dedicated to empty bottle returns utilizing a company called Clynk. Customers set up an account, bag and tag their empties and drop them off. The can and bottle rebates are then credited toward future grocery purchases. There’s a brand-new return machine inside the store as well, which takes all types of deposit bottles and cans together. Six new self-checkout registers have been added to the front of the store.
Prefer a more hands-on, low-tech shopping experience? Hannaford of Highland now has it for you in spades, with a new emphasis on freshly prepared foods for the shopper too busy to cook. There are brand-new salad and olive bars, a wing bar serving up ten different flavors of chicken wings, three cauldrons of hot soup and a coffee counter, all self-serve. A cafeteria-style hot foods bar will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m., offering comfort foods on Sunday and Monday, Italian foods on Tuesday and Wednesday, barbecue on Thursday and Asian foods on Friday and Saturday.
A new kitchen was built specifically to enable Hannaford’s to expand its lines of value-added “grab-and-go” foods prepared in-store. Premade sandwiches, wraps, subs and single-serving salads are popular items. Precut cold cuts are wrapped and ready to take home with no waiting. There’s a baking oven and a deep-fryer. The deli department even has a special cutting board dedicated to sushi-making. “The sushi chef comes in every day,” Sawyer said. “You can watch him at work. He’s like an artist.”
Bakery staff will custom-decorate cakes before your eyes as well.
Putting so much focus on the kitchen and deli operation was “what made the remodel such a huge undertaking. The deli was in front; now it’s moved all the way to the back,” the store manager noted. “The deli has the most new offerings of any department on the floor.”
Another visually striking change is the redesign and expansion of the produce section, touted as offering a “store-within-the-store atmosphere.” New wood-grained tile flooring and low-profile displays designed to resemble wooden crates create the feel of an old-timey greengrocer’s market. The sections for organic produce, cut flowers and juices have all been expanded and made more visible.
A significant change in product offerings is a new emphasis on ethnic foods. The produce section contains a large display of Latin American cooking ingredients, such as yuca, yame, calabaza squash and several kinds of edible cactus, and the fish department is now offering a much larger selection of whole fish. “This is something big for us now — it’s proving really popular,” Sawyer said.
Organizationally, Hannaford is no longer concentrating all its natural and organic products in a single “health foods” department, but distributing them throughout the store as appropriate. So, if you’re looking for gluten-free pasta, just look in the pasta section. Seems like a no-brainer, in retrospect, but the approach of encouraging healthy eating across the board is an idea whose time has finally come. If you’re shopping for family members with varying dietary needs, your job just got a little easier. And speaking of health: Hannaford’s pharmacy department now has a drive-up pickup, plus an enclosed consultation room providing more comfort and privacy when you come in for your flu shot.
Check out the “new” Hannaford in Highland over the next three weeks to take advantage of the Grand Reopening giveaways and special deals. Come back for the improved selection and convenient new services. It’s located in the Bridgeview Plaza at 3650 Route 9W. Visit www.hannaford.com/hannafordtogo and follow the Highland store link to place your order for curbside pickup.
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