Dominick's

Dominick's

Type	Grocer, Subsidiary of Safeway Inc.
Industry	Retail (Grocery)
Founded	1918 (Chicago, Illinois)
Headquarters	Oak Brook, Illinois
Number of locations	99
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor
Website	dominicks.com

Dominick's Finer Foods, Inc. is a grocery store chain and subsidiary of Safeway Inc. with locations mainly in the Chicago area, Illinois, USA. Dominick's distribution center is located in Northlake,^[1] while its management offices are located in Oak Brook.^[2][3]

History

Founding

Dominick DiMatteo, born in Sicily, founded the chain in 1918. The second Dominick's opened in 1934. In 1950, the DiMatteos opened their first supermarket, a 14,000-square-foot (1,300 m²) store.^[4]

Expansion

By 1968 the chain had reached 19 stores. The family elected to sell their store to the Cleveland company, Fisher Foods. The DiMatteos continued to operate the chain under the financial backing of Fisher Foods. By the 1980s the family became unhappy with the agreement and bought back the chain for $100 million.^[4] The DiMatteos continued to expand and acquired Kohl's (Chicago area only) and Eagle stores.

Store design during Dominick's heyday

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Dominick's experimented with new large "food and drug" combo stores. Dominick's was one of the first to experiment with exposed ceiling sales areas, exposed structural elements such as piping and HVAC ducts, large scale state of the art telephone systems and POS systems, video departments, one hour photo, bulk foods, and many other "new" 1980s concepts.^[5]

During the 1990s, Dominick's took the "food and drug" combo to the next level with the introduction of the Dominick's Fresh Store, under the direction of then CEO Bob Mariano. The Dominick's "Fresh Store" introduced prepared foods, in store restaurants/cafes, Starbucks cafes, soft lighting, upscale subtle graphics, uniform products signage, and a general European Market feel to the Dominick's stores. During the late 1990s, the Fresh Stores were the main expansion model for Dominick's and was rolled out to all new stores including former Omni Superstores, up until the purchase by Safeway.

Safeway bought Dominick's in 1998 and put an abrupt halt to the Bob Mariano styled Fresh Stores and instead rolled out their own prototype with the Fresh Store logo on the outside of the store.^[6] Even though Safeway still put "The Fresh Store" cursive logo on the outside of the stores, the Fresh Store concepts such as cafes, fresh prepared foods and European store layout format were phased out in favor of Safeway's own store layout and house brands such as Safeway Select. This caused many customers to stop shopping at Dominick's. Only lately, has Safeway regained market share with Dominick's by their introduction of the new "Lifestyle Format" which greatly reflects many of the concepts of the former Fresh Stores Bob Mariano created in the 1990s.^[6]

1990s: Takeovers

In 1993, Dominick DiMatteo, Jr. died from lung cancer. According to the local press, his daughters and son did not have the same passion for the supermarket business. There was corporate infighting that also contributed to the family selling the chain. It took three years before the company was sold to a Los-Angeles-based grocery investment firm headed by Yucaipa Co.^[7] Starting in 1996, Dominick's "Fresh Stores" were developed by then president Bob Mariano, and stores starting having various new services, such as carry-out food, specialty bakeries, delis, floral shops, and in-store dining. The stores were a hit and made higher profits than traditional supermarkets. Under the leadership of Mariano they grew profitable, since Mariano had knowledge of Chicago's taste for ethnic foods.

In 1998, the chain's then 116 stores were acquired by Safeway Inc. Safeway soon began to sell its own private-label brands at Dominick's locations, replacing Dominick's former private-label brands. According to Jim Hertel of grocery consultancy Willard Bishop Consulting Ltd., "Dominick’s focused on purchasing produce and meat on quality first, price second. Safeway did just the opposite."^[8] Dominick's lost market share and profits following the Safeway takeover. Safeway tried to imitate the model that had been successful in California, but Chicago's strong ethnic background did not mesh well with the California shopping experience. Between 2002 and 2007, Dominick's market share in the Chicago region declined from 24.4 percent to 14.5 percent. Jewel-Osco's 40.5 percent is the market's leader.^[9] Safeway unsuccessfully attempted to sell the Dominick's chain in 2003.^[10] Safeway then reported Dominick's financial information as a discontinued operation,^[11] but more recently, Safeway announced that it was retaining the chain.^[12]

After closing more than 20 stores since its acquisition, Safeway announced in February 2007 that it would close another 14 stores in the Chicago area and convert 20 existing stores to the lifestyle format.^[13] After these store closings, Dominick's will operate in 83 locations.

Omni Superstore

Omni Superstore, Schererville, IN, 1991: canopy for loading groceries

Main article: Omni Superstore

In 1987, the chain opened Omni Superstore locations, which were "warehouse-style" supermarkets to stave off Cub Foods supermarkets. Besides traditional food items, these stores featured non-food items, movie rentals stores, and bulk items. The stores design was stark in comparison to Dominick's and featured cost-cutting techniques.

These stores began to lose money due to lack of loss prevention and throwaway inventorying. Around 1996 then-owner Yucaipa decided to convert them to the Dominick's "Fresh Store" concept. Omni Superstores were converted to Dominick's Stores in 1997.

After Dominick's was acquired by Safeway, some locations were closed. The Clybourn Avenue Dominick's in Chicago is the only remaining Omni Superstore building now occupied by Dominick's.

Brands

Dominick's private label brands vary between those branded for Safeway and ones branded Dominick's. Safeway's most notable private label is Safeway Select. In 2006 Safeway released a private brand of organics named "O Organics".

Lifestyle branding

On April 18, 2005, Safeway, Dominick's parent company, began a 100 million dollar brand re-positioning campaign labeled "Ingredients for life". Although the campaign is used in the Chicago area, the "Ingredients for Life" slogan is still positioned with the store's logo like it is for Safeway's other divisions (i.e. at the end of commercials and on billboards Dominick's logo is flashed combined with the slogan, as used in Safeway's other divisions). Under this campaign many stores will be remodeled to the new format. Lifestyle stores feature more upscale trends than Dominick's last re-branding, "Fresh Stores." Usually Lifestyle stores feature an olive bar, carving station, Starbucks, and a salad bar. Architectural changes include hardwood flooring and new direct lighting schemes that tend to be less abrasive. While Safeway's logo was redesigned under the campaign, present Lifestyle stores feature the traditional Dominick's logo. The first Dominick's to be branded a Lifestyle store was in Northfield.^[7]

Banking

Realizing the ease of in-store banking, Dominick's formed an agreement with First Chicago NBD Corp., the first bank opened in 1995. Today, many Dominick's feature in-store bank locations and ATMs by First Chicago successor, Chase.^[4]

Sales of Expired Food Controversy

On February 17, 2011 CBS Chicago News aired a report^[14] picked up on from Chicago blogger Jill Cataldo^[15] about a widespread issue with the sale of expired products in Dominick's stores. Legions of Dominick's customers had apparently been contacting Dominick's about these issues for some time to no avail. In two separate shopping trips to two different Dominick's stores, Ms. Cataldo along with two of her readers, documented over 700 expired items on the store shelves, some more than 2 years past their expiration dates.^[16]

On that same day The Chicago Tribune featured an article^[17] on the Dominick's expired food issue. In that article, Safeway, as parent company of Dominick's, released the following statement to the media: “Dominick’s customers rightly expect they will find only high-quality, fresh products at all of our stores. Our organization is committed to meeting those expectations. While expiration dates on food products are largely based on quality, not food safety, that does not diminish the fact that we are displeased with the out-of-date products found at our stores. This is not indicative of how we do business. A high-level and highest-priority team has been assembled to immediately address these issues.”

Reports of shoppers witnessing Dominick's employees in the aisles of their stores filling carts with expired products began popping up in the comments sections of these articles.

On February 18, 2011 various Chicago market media outlets also ran reports on this problem including NBC Chicago^[18], WGN Morning News^[19] and WBBM AM Radio.

Scores of customers had taken to the Dominick's Facebook page^[20] demanding answers about the volume of expired products on their shelves, but Dominick's remained silent on the issue prior to Ms. Cataldo's blog posts and the subsequent media coverage.

References

1. ^ "Distribution Centers." Safeway Inc. 2. Retrieved on May 13, 2010.
2. ^ Gallun, Alby. "Dominick's losing its local flavor." Crain's Chicago Business. June 17, 2002. Retrieved on December 23, 2009.
3. ^ Hoover's Masterlist of Major US Companies, A-Z. Hoover's, 2005. Page number not stated. Retrieved from Google Books on 14 February 2011. "DOMINICK'S FINER FOODS, INC. 711 Jorie Blvd. Oak Brook, IL 60523"
4. ^ ^{a b c} "Dominick's Finer Foods, LLC". Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/dominick-s-finer-foods-inc. 
5. ^ Book: Market, Supermarket & Hypermarket Design, Author: Martin Pegler, Year: 1989
6. ^ ^{a b} "Safeway's mistakes offer lesson for new Jewel owner". Crain's Chicago Business. 2005-12-16. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=18836. 
7. ^ ^{a b} Duff, Mike (2005-03-28). "A taste of Calif. lifestyle in Dominick's Chicago stores". DSN Retailing Today. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FNP/is_6_44/ai_n13619837. 
8. ^ "Safeway's mistakes offer lesson for new Jewel owner". Crain's Chicago Business. 2005-12-16. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=18836. 
9. ^ "Roundy's joins Chicago grocery fray". Chicago Tribune. 2007-02-13. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0702130239feb13,1,6035879.story?coll=chi-news. 
10. ^ Goll, David (2005-03-07). "Talk of Safeway sale of Dominick's gets louder". East Bay Business Times. http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2005/03/07/daily10.html. 
11. ^ "Safeway Inc., Form 10Q". Securities and Exchange Commission. 2003-05-06. http://sec.edgar-online.com/2003/05/06/0000950149-03-001039/Section7.asp. 
12. ^ "Safeway has no intention to sell Dominick's chain". Chicago Sun-Times. 2007-05-05. http://www.suntimes.com/business/371923,CST-FIN-safe05.article. ^{[dead link]}
13. ^ "Dominick's to close 14 local stores". Crain's Chicago Business. 2007-02-02. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=23729. 
    "Dominick's to close 14 area stores by April". Chicago Tribune. 2007-02-03. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0702030033feb03,1,1776029.story?coll=chi-news-hed. 
14. ^ "Mom Blogger Finds Cartloads of Expired Date Food At Popular Grocer". CBS Chicago. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/02/17/mom-blogger-finds-cartloads-of-expired-date-food-at-popular-grocer/. 
15. ^ "Expired Food at Dominick's First In A Series". JillCataldo.com. http://jillcataldo.com/node/15175. 
16. ^ "Expired Food at Dominick's Second Second In A Series". JillCataldo.com. http://jillcataldo.com/node/15267. 
17. ^ "Outdated Items At Dominick's Angers Customers". Chicago Tribune.com. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0218-dominicks-food-20110218,0,1178507.story. 
18. ^ "Angry Customers Complain Dominick's Sold Them Expired Items". NBC Chicago. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Angry-Customers-Complain-Dominicks-Sold-Them-Expired-Items--116468968.html. 
19. ^ "Dominick's Addresses Expired Food Concerns". WGN TV. http://www.wgntv.com/videobeta/9c61912a-1033-4f51-b1ab-38be41ea3654/News/Dominick-s-addresses-expired-food-concerns. 
20. ^ "Dominick's Facebook Page". http://www.facebook.com/Dominicks. 

External links

	Chicago portal
	Illinois portal
	Companies portal
	Food portal

• Dominick's
• Official mobile version