Jewel-Osco bloggers’ event: All about Jewel, and a tour of three stores

Last week, Jewel-Osco held a media event and progressive lunch for its Chicagoland bloggers. It took place at three different Jewel-Osco locations: Fulton Square in River North, Howard Street in Evanston, and Chicago’s Southport store too. At each stop we ate, learned more about Jewel-Osco and had the opportunity to ask questions about our largest area supermarket chain. (We also rode on one of those stretch limo-buses with “Bob,” the Jewel-Osco commercial guy.)

First stop: Fulton Square

I’ve previously blogged about the gorgeous Fulton Square Jewel during a past bloggers’ lunch, so I’ll try not to repeat my report from that event, other than to say that this is quite possibly the most beautiful Jewel-Osco you’ll ever see. It’s a LEED-certified “green store” with a natural turf roof, and the entire store is designed with environmentally-friendly features.

At this stop, Jewel-Osco President Brian Huff talked about the history of Jewel-Osco. Did you know…

• Jewel dates back to 1899, when the company was founded as the Jewel Tea Company. It delivered tea and coffee to people’s homes with a horse-drawn wagon! In 1932, Jewel bought 80 stores and opened them as Jewel retail locations.
• Jewel recognized the influence of women being the primary shopper very early, hiring many women as store managers. By 1944, women managed 1/4 of all Jewel locations.
• In 1961, Jewel merged with Osco Drug, becoming Jewel-Osco. Jewel-Osco then merged with American Stores in 1984, Albertson’s in 1999, and finally became part of SuperValu in 2006.

The Fulton Square Jewel at 370 N. DesPlaines features a very open layout, an enormous produce and natural foods section with a heavy slant toward organics, and a CK Grill, which is kind of a combination restaurant/counter service grill with a chef making delicious, custom meals and foods for shoppers. (Other Jewel-Oscos with CK Grills inside are at 2940 N. Ashland Ave. and 3630 N. Southport Ave in Chicago; 1485 Palatine Road in Hoffman Estates, and 150 W. Main St. in Barrington.)

For this part of our lunch, we had shish kebabs from the CK grill, as well as a variety of Jewel house-branded foods. We had slices of two new flavors of Culinary Circle pizzas that are hitting stores soon – Sirloin Steak Three Cheese Bacon (yum) and Roasted Vegetable Goat Cheese (also yum.)

Second Stop: Evanston, 2485 Howard Street

From River North, we boarded the limo/bus and headed to Evanston. The actor who portrays “Bob,” the Jewel-Osco Ambassador, came along for the rest of our day. He’s featured in the continued series of Gotta Love Lower Prices commercials that have been airing, and he appears on a lot of Jewel-Osco signage and ads. He was also a very nice guy. During the drive, we got a sneak preview of the next television commercial which will start airing soon, and we were told that Jewel-Osco has lowered prices on more than 23,000 items this summer.

We arrived at the Evanston store, and it truly is unique. Jewel’s representatives on hand discussed their concept of hyper-local marketing in areas which demand serving a particular demographic. We were told that more than 3,000 Orthodox Jewish families live within a two-mile radius of this store. The average family size? 8-12 children! So this Jewel is designed with this segment of the local population in mind.

There are two delis, side by side — a regular deli and a Kosher deli. Across the store, there are two bakeries side by side — a regular bakery and a Kosher bakery. We were told that the kosher deli and kosher bakery even have separate dishwashers for the dishes, knives, and other utensils that are used for either meat products or dairy products, as these items cannot be mixed.

While the kosher deli and bakery are aimed at the Orthodox Jewish clientele, we were told that they’re also enjoyed by non-Jewish shoppers too. Yakov Yarmove, Jewel’s Corporate Kosher Marketing and Operations Manager, stated that the kosher bakery at this Jewel is Parve, which means it is dairy-free. People who are lactose intolerant or have milk allergies can safely shop for baked goods at the kosher bakery, knowing they are free from milk.

Because kosher meats are prepared differently than regular meats (part of the slaughter and kashering process also involves salting the meat) many non-Jewish customers opt to buy kosher for health reasons too. Yakov pointed out that no kosher meats have ever been recalled for an E. coli outbreak, and this may be due to the specific processes that kosher meats undergo. This makes them attractive to people who are wary of traditional meat processing.

Other fun niche marketing at this Jewel? There’s a kosher sushi bar…

… and a kosher Chinese restaurant INSIDE the Jewel! Yakov explained that the Jewish community loves Chinese food, but there were no options in the neighborhood for kosher Chinese takeout. Tein Li Chow offers fresh, made-to-order Chinese food, and they even have free delivery if you live in the area.

We ate a mix of kosher and non-kosher foods at this Jewel, including grilled chicken from the Chef’s Kitchen, a delicious Israeli salad with tomatoes, dill and cucumbers in it, and a potato souffle. And, “Bob” posed for photos with… himself.

(I SO could not resist bringing one of these babkas home with me. I realize this wasn’t a shopping tour, but if you could have seen the wonderful things in this bakery..! I made a mad dash for the self-checker on the way out of this store and then boarded the bus with my babka.)

Third Stop: Southport

Then, it was off to the Southport Jewel-Osco. I have blogged about this one too previously after attending another event there, but it’s also a beautiful store. It’s also the only two-story Jewel-Osco I’ve ever been to. The entire liquor department is on a mezzanine level of the store. The parking lot is entirely beneath the store, and you can take an elevator down with your shopping cart to load your groceries into your car too.

Here, we sampled grilled steak seasoned with one of the new free seasoning mixes that are available at the meat counter.

We learned that all Jewel stores are rolling these seasoning bars out, and the staff will season your meat free of charge if you’d like. You can even request that they open a package of pork chops, steaks, etc, and they’ll season and rewrap for you. We tasted the Steak House variety, which was a strong pepper-steak flavor.

This Jewel also had a kosher meat counter, and a very nice selection of organic products, meats, and a display of grass-fed beef. Many of the bloggers in attendance asked why other Jewel-Osco stores don’t carry grass-fed beef like the Southport store was. We were told that, as with any store, the products sold in the store are determined by the demand from the market area. While many of us would prefer to eat grass-fed beef, not every store’s clientele is willing to buy grass-fed beef.

These grass-fed burger patties are $7.49/lb.

And, these grass-fed steaks are $18.99/lb. And seeing those prices did make clearer why not all Jewel stores carry it. If the people living in the area aren’t regularly purchasing these products, it’s not cost-productive for a store to keep them in stock.

At this store, we sampled new flavors of Stone Ridge Creamery ice cream (Salted Caramel and Strawberry Lemonade) and had a piece of cake. There was also a cheese and wine bar upstairs in the liquor department. As I don’t drink, I passed on the wine-tasting, but I did indulge at the cheese bar, where several varieties of brie, gouda, and other cheeses were calling to me.

And, of course, we posed with “Bob” for photos! Here’s me with Clair from Mummy Deals and Maria from A Savings Wow! Rachel and Trish from Mashup Mom, Christy from The Shoppers Apprentice, and other local bloggers were also in attendance, as was a reporter from the Daily Herald.

Other Jewel-Osco randomness I learned during the event:

• The French bread that’s baked fresh in the store has a four-hour shelf/floor time. After four hours it’s pulled and donated to a food bank. (Your French bread should always be super-fresh!)
• Jewel has implemented a Fresh Rescue program and is moving to become a zero-food-waste company. All deli and Chef’s Kitchen scraps are composted, and anything else that can be donated, is. Jewel-Osco supports the Greater Chicago Food Depository or Northern Illinois Food Bank, and to date they’ve donated more than 11 million pounds of food to these organizations.
• 94% of Jewel-Osco shoppers buy private-label (house branded) Jewel products in their stores.
• Jewel-Osco holds 70% of all organic food sales in Chicagoland, aside from Whole Foods, who does not report their sales publicly.
• 80% of Jewel-Osco stores have been remodeled within the past 7 years, and more remodels are in the works. 127 of the Jewel-Osco stores have a Wild Harvest organic and natural food area inside the store. (And for my very-local readers who shop where I do, the Huntley Jewel-Osco is slated for its remodel in early 2013, and yes, we’ll be getting a Wild Harvest “store” in our store too, per Jim Seidler, Jewel-Osco Organic Specialty and Ethnic Sales and Merchandising Manager.)

Hope you enjoyed this “Tour of Jewel-Oscos” as much as I did! As a blogger, it’s wonderful to see retailers working to continue and maintain great relationships with the people writing about them, because they know that the blogs are a conduit directly to many of their shoppers too. Throughout the day, several of the Jewel-Osco managers on hand mentioned that they take their relationships with bloggers seriously, as bloggers essentially function as reporters writing about their stores, week after week. They also acknowledged that the bloggers and blog readers often know right away when something isn’t working sale-wise in the store, or when someone has a good or bad experience worth passing along to corporate too. So true!

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Disclosure: Jewel-Osco invited me and nine other Chicagoland grocery bloggers to this event. I was not required to write this post, and I was not compensated financially for doing so. At the event described, I received a grocery bag containing a variety of Jewel-branded products (one of which I’ll be giving away here on the blog soon!) and information about Jewel-Osco stores.

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