Special Report: SuperFresh - Passaic, NJ

SuperFresh
Owner: Teofilo de Jesus

Opened: 2021

Previous Tenants: A&P > Presidente Supermarket > Compare Foods Supermarket (2005-2021)

Cooperative: Key Food Stores

Location: 161 Jefferson St, Passaic, NJ

Photographed: June 2021

If you've been keeping up on your NYC area supermarket news, there's one really big mover and shaker that has been rapidly expanding lately: Old Bridge, NJ-based Key Food Stores Co-Operative. Here's another example of Key Food bringing on an existing, and clearly successful, store to their cooperative. This store might look pretty familiar, and that's because we toured it back in March when it was a Compare Foods. In early June 2021, the store was switched over to Key Food's SuperFresh banner (a brand that was acquired from A&P in the 2015-16 bankruptcy. I visited the store just about a week after the switch happened, so the signage hadn't been fully installed yet but banners were up around the store advertising the new name.

I assume the exterior will be painted too, since the blue, red, and yellow scheme is not only looking rather faded now but is the Compare Foods color scheme. The interior, at the time of my visit, was completely unchanged since the store's days as a Compare Foods, even with all the Compare Foods logos still up inside. Again, I assume that since I visited the store so soon after the switch, that will all be updated in time.

And we can see on the back of the store, where the Compare Foods sign used to be, is the beige paint I assume previously covered the store. Compare Foods used a bright blue color scheme here, but the store would look pretty great painted beige with the green and blue accents from the SuperFresh logo.

The vans, however, have received full SuperFresh branding, listing the Passaic and Clifton locations. I believe Clifton is under different ownership, and last I was there, they were using the same vans as when the store was an Ideal Food Basket. (But then, if they're including stores under different ownership, why not also include nearby Paterson and Glen Rock?) Anyway, the vans are quite attractive and I'm sure that, since this store does a big delivery business, they'll raise the profile of the updated store. Now, we have more to see today, so check out the under-construction Stop & Shop on Broad Street in Clifton and ShopRite of Brookdale, plus see what's up next!