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A family-owned indie grocer aims to beat the behemoths.
For grocers who want to know how to leverage innovation in their foodservice operations, a look at what "Chef Tim" is doing in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country might offer some clues. Chef Tim, aka Tim Twiford, directs the impressive foodservice offering at Reading, Pa.-based Redner's Markets Inc., an operator of 44 grocery stores and 12 convenience stores in eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, with annual sales of about $850 million. "These are Henny Penny fryers," says Twiford as he leads a tour of the company's new 20,000-square-foot Central Kitchen. "Everything in here is state of the art. What happens is after, say, 12 times of frying a batch of fried chicken, it will say 'filter the oil.' So it won't let you fry anything else. And this ensures all of our fried chicken is excellent."
As it turns out, fried chicken isn't the only thing that the third generation of Redners leading Redner's Markets takes seriously. If you're looking for a case study of how a 50-year-old family-owned independent grocer can reinvent itself to win over new shoppers and create sustained growth, Redner's is it.
Family Focus on Fresh
In 2019, a year before the company turned 50, Redner's embarked on a mission to reimagine its business model. Since its founding in 1970, the grocery chain had always been known for offering a no-frills, warehouse-style store experience.
"We were almost Walmart before Walmart," says Redner's Markets COO Gary Redner. "Our grandfather was a visionary, certainly ahead of his time. Take all the frills out of everything. Bare bones, bare pricing. Very plain Jane, drive everything into the cost."
Fast-forward decades after Walmart came along, and the Redners knew something had to change.
"Because there's so much competition, so much competition," explains Redner's Markets President and CEO Ryan Redner, who along with Gary, is a grandson of company founder Earl Redner.
The Redner's trading area, some of the most beautiful rolling hills and countryside in the mid-Atlantic, is strewn with a "Who's Who" of successful grocery and c-store operators: We-gmans Food Markets, Wawa, The Giant Co., Sheetz, Tidl, Rut-ter's, Weis Markets and Royal Farms, and that list doesn't even include the bigger national...