With Stores in Store, Giant Goes Gargantuan

Giant Food Vice President Bill Marriott won't mind if you walk around the chain's new store in Dunkirk, Md., and forget that you are in a supermarket. In fact, that's the whole point.

One aisle is filled with DVDs and CDs, including the latest from Christina Aguilera and Paris Hilton. Movie posters hang overhead, and a TV monitor plays children's videos all day, catering to the families with small children that Marriott is hoping will fill the store.

"You're leaving a grocery store and coming into an entertainment store," Marriott -- not to be confused with the hotel chain operator -- said during a tour last week of the newly built store in Calvert County, which opened Friday.

A few aisles down, the shelves are stocked with scented candles. "This smells like Yankee Candle shop," he said, taking a deep breath.

The round display of greeting cards, rolls of wrapping paper and party supplies? Reminiscent of a Hallmark store. The aisle with coffee makers, Oneida dinnerware and small Cuisinart appliances? Bed, Bath & Beyond. Office supplies? Licensed from Staples.

The aim is to turn Giant from a local grocer into a one-stop-shopping destination housing "stores within a store" that sell items as varied as piñatas and pet leashes.

"In almost every section across the store, we've tried to incorporate something new," Marriott said.

The Dunkirk store is a significant step for Giant in the Washington area. It kicks off a major expansion and remodeling plan for the aging chain -- six more stores will be opened or redone by the end of September -- and represents a major investment by Giant's Netherlands-based parent company, Royal Ahold NV.

For shoppers, the new prototype is tangible evidence of the changes -- for better or worse -- that Giant has been through since Ahold bought the chain in 1998. The format borrows heavily from Stop & Shop, the Massachusetts-based supermarket chain that Ahold merged Giant into two years ago. Marriott said the blueprints are nearly identical, with a few tweaks for local shoppers. The bakery department, for example, was expanded because Giant customers buy more decorated cakes, he said. Customers here also prefer larger seafood counters.

Perishable food is a big player in the new strategy. Giant has created a "power aisle" at the entrance of the store that combines the departments where it hopes to boost sales: bakery, seafood, produce, cheese and prepared foods.

"The real focus on freshness is where we're going as a company," Marriott said. "The customer has told us that's the lead department."

Marriott said Giant has decreased its warehouse inventory to help improve produce freshness. It has replaced Dietz & Watson deli meat with the higher-end Boar's Head label and sells packaged meals from Boston Market. The Dunkirk store has a staffed counter with more than 200 varieties of cheese, including a Wensleydale made with blueberries.