Dive Brief:

• Meijer is launching a supermarket store format, with plans to open the first two locations early next year in southeast Michigan.
• Meijer Grocery stores will be between 75,000 and 90,000 square feet and will include departments like produce, meat, seafood, deli, pharmacy, and health and beauty care. The stores will be located in Orion Township and Macomb Township, which sit adjacent to each other in the northern Detroit area.
• The new brick-and-mortar concept will complement Meijer’s other store formats, which include its legacy supercenters and the neighborhood markets it has been opening in recent years.

Dive Insight:

Meijer’s store portfolio includes large stores and small stores. Now, it’s introducing a medium-sized grocery format that extends the retailer’s focus on fresh foods and new shopping experiences.

A virtual tour shows that Meijer Grocery will feature large fresh departments at the front of the store, including produce, bakery and seafood, with grocery aisles like frozen and home goods situated further back. The store includes a large pet department along with ones dedicated to baby and health and wellness. A vitamins and supplements section sits next to the pharmacy, which has a large window allowing shoppers to look in.

A scan of the store’s exterior shows the parking lot will wrap around a large corner entrance. One side of the store will have an area for pickup, while the other side offers a pharmacy drive-thru window.

During a planning commission meeting in Orion Township last year, a real estate manager for Meijer said the store will focus mainly on food, employ up to 150 people and carry a limited assortment of general merchandise. She noted the location would not carry items like electronics and clothing that Meijer’s supercenters typically stock.

Meijer has shown a willingness in recent years to experiment with and expand new store formats. It opened its first neighborhood grocery store, Bridge Street Market, in 2018 and opened a few additional small-format neighborhood grocery stores since. These stores feature unique names and are able to slot into dense urban and suburban markets the company’s legacy supercenters might not be able to reach. 

Meijer Grocery adds another weapon to the retailer’s store arsenal. However, it also brings the company into direct competition with a litany of supermarket competitors that have spent years operating in Meijer’s home markets.