Jill Cataldo

It is in no way my intention to complain about, slam, or otherwise present Jewel-Osco or any of its staff in a negative light. I've publicly stated hundreds of times that Jewel is my favorite Chicagoland shopping destination. However, the amount of press their parent company, SuperValu, has received lately regarding their decisions for Jewel-Osco's future has left me and many of my readers wondering what's going on with one of our favorite places to shop. We have had numerous concurrent discussions running in the blog forum over the past few weeks about shoppers' unhappiness with some of SuperValu's changes being implemented at Jewel, with readers asking what's going on and why. Special thanks to all of my readers who sent articles and links that contributed to this post.

Overview

Craig Herkert is the CEO of SuperValu. He joined SuperValu in 2009 after leaving a CEO position at Wal-Mart. When he took over, both trade publications and coupon boards buzzed with speculation and fears that Mr. Herkert would ultimately try to "Wal-Mart-ize" its SuperValu-owned supermarkets, moving away from a "high/low" pricing structure to an "everyday low price" model, with more house-branded products to maximize profits. (Yes, this is probably something the average, rest-of-the-world Jewel shopper neither researches nor worries about, but couponers are a much different breed!) And, over the past few months, those of us who have long been loyal Jewel customers have seen signs that the direction Mr. Herkert's taking Jewel in may be negatively affecting its shoppers.

Last fall, Mr. Herkert announced plans to open 1,200 new Save-A-Lot stores nationally over the next five years [link]. My readers may be unfamiliar with Save-A-Lot, but it's comparable to Aldi, offering mostly house brands, very few national brands, and a stripped-down product offering. Again, shoppers on blogs and messageboards around the country wondered if this "many house brands" strategy would, over time, carry over to the SuperValu-owned supermarkets too -- including Jewel.

In February, Retail Industry News reported that "The news over the weekend ended months of speculation about Supervalu’s plans for various divisions now that its new CEO, Craig Herkert, has made clear that he believes the Save-A-Lot business model - stressing reduced SKUs and a strong value proposition - is the company’s retailing future." [link] And shoppers knew changes were to come.