by Larry Brooks [email protected] “CHB Bites” is a column designed to keep you in-the-know about Certified Hereford Beef (CHB) program happenings. CHB LLC is celebrating 20 years with a “Farm-to-Fork” series featuring how Herefords become the ultimate eating experience. You can also follow CHB on Facebook at facebook.com/CertifiedHerefordBeef. Farm The retail is our -to- next stop on the pasture-to-plate tour of Certified Hereford Beef Fork (CHB®). Once the beef has left the packing plant, it’s on its way to a foodservice or retail Part 1: distributor to ultimately end up Seedstock in the retail meatcase, and that’s where our story picks up. Chain grocery retailing Part 2: Stocker was a phenomenon that took off around the beginning of the 20th century with the Part 3: Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Feedlot Company (A&P) and other small, regional players. Grocery often staffed by only two or three for example) would locate within stores of this era tended to be employees, with no meat or the same small shopping center Part 4: small, generally less than 1,000 produce departments. surrounding a parking lot. Packer square feet and also focused In 1926 Charles Merrill, of In 1930 Michael Cullen, on only one aspect of food Merrill Lynch, set in motion a former executive of both Part 5: retailing. Grocers sold what is a series of transactions that and A&P, opened Retail known as “dry grocery” items, led to the creation of Safeway his first store, or canned goods and other Stores, when he arranged the widely cited as America’s first non-perishable staples. merger of Skaggs Cash Stores, supermarket, although others Part 6: Produce vendors, butchers a chain with operations in have some legitimate claim to Foodservice and greengrocers were northern and the that title as well. King Kullen completely separate entities, northwestern , was located in a warehouse on although they tended to cluster Part 7: with -based Sam the fringes of New York City Consumer together for convenience’s sake. Seelig Stores. In 1928 the new and offered ample free parking Clarence Saunders’ Piggly chain bought most of the West and additional concessions in a Wiggly stores, established in Coast’s stores and bazaar-like atmosphere. Part 8: Memphis in 1916, are widely later acquired Sanitary Stores in Merchandise was sold out Future credited with introducing the Washington area as well as of packing cartons and little America to self-service shopping. MacMarr Stores, another chain attention was paid to décor. It was not until the 1920s that that Merrill had assembled. The emphasis was on volume, chain stores started to become As early as the 1920s, with this one store projected a dominant force in American some chain grocers were to do the volume of up to one food and retailing. Small experimenting with consolidated hundred conventional chain regional chains such as Kroger, (albeit still rather small) stores stores. The volume and the , that featured at least a small no-frills approach resulted in and others began covering more selection of fresh meats and considerably lower prices. and more territory, and A&P produce along with the dry The supermarket, as it came began moving toward a more grocery items. Los Angeles was to be known, was initially a national profile, operating more seeing the beginning of the phenomenon of independents than 10,000 of its “economy “drive-in market” phenomenon and small, regional chains. stores” by the end of the decade. where several complementary Eventually, the large chains Most of these stores remained food retailers (a butcher, a baker, caught on as well, and they small, counter-service stores, a grocer and a produce vendor, refined the concept, adding a

22 / July 2015 Hereford.org level of sophistication that had been The other big trend during this lacking from the spartan stores of the time was toward mergers and leveraged early 1930s. buyouts. This trend affected almost By 1940 A&P’s store count had all the major chains. A&P was sold been reduced by half, but its sales to German interests. Safeway took were up. Similar transformations itself private in 1987 to avoid a hostile occurred among all the “majors.” and lost half its geographical In fact, most national chains of the reach in the process. Kroger slimmed You can find a full list time saw their store counts peak down somewhat in 1988 for the same of CHB retailers and around 1935 and then decline sharply reasons, while Lucky was acquired through consolidation. by American Stores in the same year. retail distributors at By the 1950s, the transition to Another round of mergers in the 1990s HerefordBeef.org was largely complete, and placed American Stores in the hands the migration to suburban locations of , reunited Safeway with was beginning. Some chains were more much of its former territory and greatly at our partners like , aggressive with this move than others. increased the West Coast presence of Coborn’s-Cashwise, Yoke’s Fresh Market The 1950s and 1960s were seen Kroger, making these three chains the and Affiliated Food Amarillo, just to by many as the golden age of the dominant players in the industry, along name a few. You can find a full list of supermarket, with bright new stores with Wal-Mart. retailers and retail distributors on our opening on a regular basis, generating All of this brings us to the present. website HerefordBeef.org. Stop in and find excited and glowing newspaper reports CHB is going strong in retailers across the closest supermarket where you can and serving a marketplace that was the country. We encourage you to look go buy that great CHB. HW increasingly affluent. Many shoppers, however, wondered what the costs of these amenities CHB in the supermarket might be, and something of a backlash Since its inception in 1995, Certified developed. This backlash was answered Hereford Beef (CHB®) has become a staple in the late 1960s with a new trend in American supermarkets. With more than known as “discounting.” 50 million lb. of CHB sold in 2014, it’s the Numerous stores around the supermarkets that are leading the way with country embarked on discounting almost 30 million lb. of that going through programs about the same time. their distribution channel. segmentation we see CHB LLC currently serves 304 retail today grew out of the discounting stores in 35 states and is looking to grow. movement as amplified in the Mark Layco, director of retail marketing for 1980s. The middle range began to CHB LLC, gives insight on what retailers are disappear, albeit slowly, as mainline looking for in today’s market. stores went more “upscale” and low- “Retailers are wanting something new, end stores moved more toward a different and at the same time delivers a warehouse model, evocative of the gross-profit margin they’re happy with,” early supermarkets of the 1930s. Many Layco says. “With the superior yields, consistent quality, taste and tenderness that CHB offers, we can meet all their needs chains operated at both ends of the and then some.” spectrum, often under different names. Layco echoes the chatter that is taking place in the retail market. Things are Others eliminated one end of the changing and CHB LLC needs to change with them. In an effort to keep up with the market completely. changing tide, Layco has also developed a new comprehensive tool for CHB LLC to The reemergence of superstores, offer to our retail customers — Certified Hereford Beef University. featuring general merchandise and At Certified Hereford Beef University, the purpose is to help retail partners with a groceries under one roof accelerated variety of things. Coming from experience with Kroger, Layco says time and labor are this trend. Many such stores had major issues inside the meat case. With this in mind he says, “We’re going to be the opened in the early 1960s; some answer for whatever our partners need and offer new answers and suggestions to of them operated by chain grocers things like SKU rationalization, tray styling procedures, standards manuals, procedural themselves. Only a few survived, Fred cutting courses, product knowledge material, employee retention procedures and Meyer in Oregon being a noteworthy applications, safety programs, dating policies for proteins, backroom management, example, and “one-stop shopping” shrink and gross profit opportunities, time and labor management and new cutting seemed a relatively new and fresh idea edge marketing research along with culinary and beef production training.” when and Wal-Mart tried it CHB is bringing more and more to the retail arena. With these new strategies and again with considerably more success tactics moving forward, the whole CHB LLC team is looking to make the move to the starting around 1990. next level, and will need more CHB certified cattle from great Hereford ranchers. HW

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