MOORE — Grocery shoppers are about to be introduced to WinCo Food’s Wall of Values.The Idaho-based retailer is opening its first store at 755 SW 19 on May 25, and intends to open at least two other metro locations in Oklahoma City and Midwest City during the coming year.
“Oklahoma has exactly what we are looking for,” Nancy Lebold, a senior vice president for WinCo. “It is good, hardworking communities, with families with kids looking to stretching their dollars. WinCo doesn’t have any gimmicks when it comes to our pricing.”
“We don’t advertise. You will save money every single day, and we believe there is a specific group of customers looking for that.”
Lebold said the way the Moore community rebounded after being devastated by tornadoes in 2013 and in 1999 also impressed company officials.
Store manager Donnie Wells said the store is hiring more than 100 of its workers from the local area, and that some already are at work stocking shelves and doing other jobs as the store prepares for its opening.
“Hard work here pays off,” Wells said. “If you show up every day, work hard and are dedicated, we promote you.”
Wells said a big part of his on-the-job satisfaction comes from seeing new employees WinCo hires grow as they learn the grocery business.
“As they become a part of our family, we become part of their community,” he said.
WinCo employees begin to earn shares in the private, employee-owned company after they have worked there for six months.
“This is not a situation where we are responsible to Wall Street or some investor,” Lebold said. “Every single employee benefits when we are successful. It feels different when you walk into our stores.”
Like other grocers in the central Oklahoma market, WinCo offers a wide, competitively-priced selection of national brand products for shoppers to buy.
Bulk items and wholesale prices
Its Wall of Values will be the first thing shoppers see when they enter the store. It will feature a selection of bulk foods that can be bought by weight, including pastas, flours, beans, rices, candies, fruits, nuts, spices, liquids, honey, and more than 60 flavors of coffee under its Red Brick Roasting Co. Coffee brand.
Shoppers also can buy prepackaged foods in bulk for longer-term storage, or, can shop for items packaged for a typical family’s consumption.
“In general, our sizes are traditionally what grocery stores offer, but we offer them at wholesale prices,” Lebold said.
A delicatessen will offer meats, cheeses and salads, but also seafood and sushi, and the store also will have its own bakery. Customers can order bulk foods, cakes and deli trays online, and both Lebold and Wells said the store will carry favorite local brands enjoyed by the market’s shoppers.
WinCo Foods is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It closes only for part of Thanksgiving, part of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day.
The store will offer MoneyGram and a fax service at its customer services desk. Customers bag and carry out what they buy.
WinCo Foods started in 1967 in Boise, Idaho, as a small chain of discount warehouse grocery stores that were named Waremart. In the 1970s, it evolved into supermarkets, and in 1985, its employees bought it. In 1999, they changed its name to WinCo Foods.
WinCo operates its own distribution and transportation network through six distribution centers, including one in north Texas.
The company has about 17,000 employees who work in 115 stores in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and, starting this month, Oklahoma.
Lebold said construction already has started on WinCo’s two other metro area stores, and that they will be the same size as the 84,000-square-foot Moore store.
“That is part of our secret sauce to our lower prices, because of the volume of business we do,” she said.
by Jack Money
Source: NewsOK, May 2017
