Jeff and Tom Heinen found out Heinen’s Grocery Stores placed third in Consumer Reports 2019 grocery store ratings from the congratulatory emails they received from employees and customers right after the highly respected organization released a summary. Jeff spent part of the following Sunday searching store newsstands for a copy of the magazine that contained it.
No one had bothered to tell him the story was published only online.
“Heinen’s was closed, so I had some time,” he quips.
The co-owning brothers are looking no longer. Consumer Reports hit the stands with a follow-up article, “The Brave New World of Grocery Shopping,” and chart detailing how 96 regional and national chains scored in a survey completed by 75,000-plus Consumer Reports members, each of whom rated one or two places they most often shopped based on 13 attributes.
The Heinens still are surprised that the string of stores — spawned by their butcher shop paternal grandfather, Joe, 90 years ago that consists of 19 locations in Greater Cleveland and four in the Chicago area — made the list. Tobie Stanger, senior editor for Consumer Reports, attributes at least part of Heinen’s inclusion to Consumer Reports increasing the number of chains rated from 64 two years ago.
“We were able to include smaller chains than we included in the past,” she says.
Neither Heinen was shocked to see regional retailers take four of the five top spots for overall satisfaction. Trader Joe’s landed behind No. 1 Central Market in Texas, No. 2 Wegman’s in the mid-Atlantic, Heinen’s and No. 4 Gelson’s Markets in southern California.
“We compete against a lot of very large companies,” Jeff says. “We like to think that we’re a little more attuned to the customer, a little more nimble than they are, and that those two things help us compete against their sheer size.”
“We’re a neighborhood market,” Tom adds. “So, if we’re in the neighborhoods, and we continue to market to those neighborhoods and their desires, I think that ends up in having us be better received.”
The chain garnered the top mark — the dark-green double chevron — for “cleanliness of stores,” “helpfulness/attentiveness of employees,” “checkout speed,” “produce quality,” “produce variety,” “meat/poultry quality,” “selection of healthy options” and “selection of locally produced products.” It received the light-green single chevron — the second-highest mark — for “freshness of store-prepared foods,” “store-brand quality” and “variety of international products/multicultural foods.”
Jeff admits that Heinen’s relatively small size can pose a challenge in stocking stores with the variety of goods important to Consumer Reports members — a factor equal in importance to produce quality and superseded only by price — particularly when buying from suppliers selling huge volumes to the likes of Walmart and Kroger.
“If they only have X amount of product, we don’t get it,” Jeff says. “Many of them sell [to large competitors] at better prices.”
He adds that packaged-goods manufacturers often are reluctant to produce more limited quantities of store brands. He notes that Heinen’s didn’t begin adding them in earnest until a decade ago during the recession, when sales volumes were down and manufacturers were looking for new customers.
“As the private-label business continued to expand and [competitors] discovered some of the people we discovered, suddenly we were too small — ‘We love doing business with you, but we need more efficient production runs. Running 1,000 cases for you is not helping us,’” he says, referring to the reaction of private-label manufacturers.
However, Tom points out that Heinen’s size can be an advantage when a supplier doesn’t have enough of an item to meet a bigger competitor’s needs. The predicament has prompted buyers to build relationships with smaller producers who genuinely care about providing a consistently high-quality product — one that other stores may not have.
Jeff singles out makers of “unique and all-natural” personal-care items such as a private-label line of bar soaps and prepared salads. The latter complement the chain’s ever-expanding prepared entree and side dish offerings. As examples, Tom notes four seafood suppliers from Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Massachusetts who ship overnight the day’s fresh catch so it’s in Heinen’s cases the next morning.
“They can only do that for so many people — and farmers and ranchers, many of whom are local,” says Tom. “I have a deep-held belief that family farmers, ranchers and food producers care about their food as much as we do. And that’s what we want. We want people who see what they do as a labor of love and not a job.”
The chain only faltered in one area. Consumer Reports members gave it an orange single chevron — the second-lowest mark — in “competitiveness of prices” and an average yellow vertical bar for “prices of organic options.”
According to Jeff, Heinen’s is working to lower prices by investing in technology that makes tasks such as employee scheduling and ordering more efficient.
“Labor is far and away the largest expense-line item we have,” he says, echoing the obvious observation — graphically illustrated by Consumer Reports ratings — that price isn’t the only factor driving where people shop. Tom bluntly states that the brothers’ goal has never been to make Heinen’s the cheapest place to shop.
“We are very intent on carrying the top quality in pretty much all categories,” Tom says. “We choose not to carry a lesser-quality product that would carry a lesser price.”
In fact, Jeff sees these ratings as a hopeful sign for smaller private and family-run businesses. Tom observes that the definition of value, at least when applied to bricks-and-mortar shopping, is no longer quality and price — it’s quality, price and experience. Stanger concurs, noting that the top-rated grocers “are selling an experience in addition to selling high-quality food.”
“The Heinen’s in downtown Cleveland, for instance, located in a renovated bank building with a stained-glass domed ceiling, has become an upscale lunch and after-work destination for dining and relaxing with a glass of chardonnay,” she writes.
Tom says every store’s employees offer a premium experience by pleasantly greeting shoppers and giving them information about, say, the latest variety of apple or how to use an exotic fruit they’ve never seen before.
“As we go on into the future, that’s going to be critical to survive — for anybody,” he adds.