Welcome to Leading Edge, a semi-monthly Q&A forum where some of the grocery industry’s top executives share their views on several current and important topics. Our first interviewee is Jim McCaffrey III, CEO of McCaffrey’s Food Markets, which operates seven high-volume specialty stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Jim shares his views about topics relevant to his business and the grocery industry as a whole.
- What have been your greatest learnings over the past two years (since COVID began – customer behavior, internal adjustments, etc.)?
The first thing you learn is how the principles and culture that have guided your business will become extremely important in helping you make decisions facing any crisis. For example, the established culture in our organization indicated a willingness to make changes on all levels. Specifically, adaptability and communication are and were critically important. In the early stages of the pandemic, the operating parameters were changing at an incredible pace, forcing us to make chain-wide changes, sometimes more than once in a given day. Communication was the key to implementing these changes both for our guests and our associates. Vendor relationships are more important now than ever before. Seeds planted before March of 2020 were vital to our success during the past two years.
- What have been the unique challenges you have faced as a perishables and specialty retailer in a time where service departments have been impacted by safety and health protocols? How have you adapted?
Variety and freshness are an incredibly important part of our go-to-market strategy. Those qualities are exponentially harder to execute at a high level with the supply chain issues – labor shortages and health protocols – we currently face. Again, I want to reiterate how important our established culture was in executing our main objective – ‘do whatever it takes to satisfy a customer and never compromise on quality.’ We have adapted by being very nimble in our purchasing, by looking to vendors we haven’t used in the past and utilizing existing vendors in new ways. Probably the most important thing that has helped us is embracing cross-training in the perishable departments. Lastly, we have invested very heavily in more efficient equipment in our commissary.
- Succession planning – why has this been such a challenge for independent retailers? Can you give us a general overview of what the future of McCaffrey’s might look like during the next few years?
Independent retailers look to their own families for succession planning. This is challenging for multiple reasons. The bench isn’t always very deep in smaller families. Children are less likely to gravitate toward their parents’ careers than they may have been in the past. Those willing to do so may not be the best fit for the job. My son, Jim McCaffrey IV, joined the business in 2012 in anticipation of the day that I would want to step back. This gave him the runway to prepare for that day. Additionally, we invested in experienced professionals from outside the family to supplement his abilities and experience. We believe this has positioned us for continued success in the years ahead.
- E-commerce. What changes has McCaffrey’s made during the past few 24 months and how do you view the importance of the entire digital platform as it pertains to your business? Any further upgrades/changes on tap?
Like many retailers, we looked to an outside partner to handle the very large increase in demand. We believe the pandemic has served as a springboard, speeding adaptation of e-commerce in the grocery industry by several years ahead of where it had been heading prior to COVID. We are behind where we need to be and we are exploring several options to meet this need efficiently, in-house.
- You have a new store coming in Gladwyne, PA later this year. Tell our readers a little more about it (projected opening date, what the remodel entails, new features, etc.). Why are you confident this new supermarket will be successful when it previously failed as an A&P and an Acme?
Given the supply chain and labor market, it’s difficult to project an opening date at this point in time. We are well along in our planning and design process for this location. It will be a complete remodel from below slab up. We believe that both Acme and A&P failed to meet the unique needs of this sophisticated market. While Acme is a great operator, they don’t tend to tailor their offering to the extent a community like Gladwyne deserves. Our go-to-market strategy is well suited to serve the customer there and we are confident in the location.