Hannaford
Opened: unknown
Owner: Ahold Delhaize
Previous Tenants: Shop 'n Save (opened 1994)
Cooperative: none
Location: 333 Massachusetts Ave, Lunenburg, MA
Photographed: April 7, 2023
Welcome to the Lunenburg Hannaford, the only one in Worcester County that wasn't previously a Victory Market (let me know if I'm wrong about that, but as far as I can find, this is it). It was constructed next to a department store that's now a Walmart -- I would imagine it was originally an Ames or something like that -- as a Shop 'n Save that opened in 1994, and I don't know when it switched to Hannaford although it was before 2008.
It's 52,000 square feet -- a bit smaller than the
Twin City Mall one in Leominster, three miles southwest. But it has the same decor package and same beautiful look overall, and feels like a very new store. Obviously, much more upscale than the
Market Basket a little over a mile away, but there isn't a particularly large price gap between Market Basket and Hannaford.
Customers enter to the grand aisle on the right side, with produce in the front-right corner and floral and bakery in an island. Cheese, prepared foods, deli, and seafood line the outside of the back-right corner. Meat and dairy are on the back wall with pharmacy in the first aisle. Dairy, frozen, and beer are all on the left side.
These stores feel very colorful, both in person and in the pictures which I think do a good job of capturing it. The lighting brings out the color in the food (and the flowers, here), but the walls and other decor props like these hanging umbrellas help make the environment feel colorful and festive.
Cheese and deli are on the right side of the grand aisle.
These graphics are simple but I think they serve the store well, especially since the bones of this store are really nice and fairly new.
In fact, I accidentally visited right after the remodel was complete, as signage was posted around the store drawing customers' attention to "what's new".
This store previously had a
bland but not unattractive version of the older decor package. Unlike the Twin City Plaza location, I think it's pretty clear here the renovation is a big improvement.
It's amazing to me how different some of these bright, busy, and well-run Hannaford stores are from the frequently dead Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts, given that both are owned by Ahold Delhaize. However, they tend to keep their subsidiaries very separate, unlike other operators like say Albertsons Companies or Kroger which tend to centralize the operations much more. Hannaford and Stop & Shop don't even share a storebrand; you can see the Hannaford brand of pasta above with the white boxes.
All indications suggest this is a high-volume store. There are no grocery stores straight north of here, although there's
another Hannaford about six miles northeast of here. But my guess is a lot of the small towns between here and the New Hampshire border are shopping here (or one of the Market Baskets in Fitchburg).
Here's a strange little dairy island in the back, which appears to be cases stocked from behind sitting out in the middle of the sales floor so there's a little refrigerated box with doors on all sides.
My guess is that the frozen foods cases are original to the store. Notice the category markers, which are probably left over from the previous decor package.
Beer in the front corner.
And a look across the spacious front-end...
Oops! I accidentally came to this store during the grand reopening. Not a bad thing, though! We get to see a freshly-renovated supermarket, always a good thing.
And the Walmart that's next door is a bit unusual because, well, it's red. I assume there's some form of either zoning restriction or requirement by the landlord, but I can't say I've seen a red Walmart before. It's around 125,000 square feet and not a supercenter.
I hope you've enjoyed our look at the Montachusett Region. Now, it's time for our winter break. More details -- and a preview of what's to come --
here!
The Walmart opened on October 22, 1994, however it does not exactly strike me as a previously-owned building unless the shopping center is much older.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Shop 'n Save, most of their stores in New England were converted to the Hannaford name in 2002, which is probably the case here as a Massachusetts store.
The Walmart looks like a standard 90s pylon store with some extra details that were probably required by the shopping center or the local jurisdiction. In the early 2000s, I remember Walmart purchasing defunct retail sites in the Northeast many of which were former discount retailers like Bradlees, Ames, etc. Those stores usually got a front that looked like the Middle River, MD store: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YSaXEAUnv3VSSvMz6
DeleteSeeing as how both opened at the same time (or at least the same year from the varying posts), it would make sense that it was a completely new build for the plaza at that time.
DeleteAlso makes sense, as that time was similar to when we got the first Walmart here in NY (outside Albany), as they were finally making their way into this corner of the
country, and also a similar time that Shop 'n Save was arriving into the area as well.
Additionally, quite common at that time for Walmart to locate with a supermarket, as they had not yet gotten much into the Supercenter idea, which is why so many eventually got relocated, as they were unable to expand and many times not allowed to have too much food when a supermarket existed in the same center.
Thanks for the details here!
DeleteThis Hannford location is very impressive. A much nicer and more upscale looking store than any of the current decor from the Ahold side of things. The Ahold stores are very sterile looking to me especially the ones with gray walls and the simple wood grain backed signs with just the department name on them. Ahold-Delhaize really ought to let decor and store design ideas float between the different chains. Isolation is not a good idea. If they renovated high volume Giant-MD and Stop and Shop locations to this Hannaford interior it would really spice up the stores and might bring in more business.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! I am not a fan of the all-gray Ahold decor. There's another important difference: in my estimation, Hannaford quality is almost always better than Stop & Shop quality (especially in the perimeter), and in every comparison I've done, Hannaford is noticeably cheaper than Stop & Shop. Off the top of my head, I don't know how Hannaford and Giant compare, but that's an important difference in New England between the legacy Ahold and Delhaize chains.
DeleteGiant-MD is not in the same trouble that a lot of Stop and Shop locations seem to be based on your extensive coverage of them leading up to the store closure announcements. Giant-MD has seen some improvement since Ahold moved back to more local oversight of the chain. With that said, Giant-MD still suffers from odd out of stocks, very variable quality in produce, high pricing, a weak deli and a bakery that is mostly thaw and bake/sell. Giant-MD sale prices seem very weak as compared to Safeway and Giant's stablemate Food Lion. There are still a few Food Lion stores near where I live. Soon I'll be moving to an area with multiple Food Lion locations that compete with Martins (Giant-PA) and Weis. The Food Lion stores actually impress me. They are nowhere near as upscale as the Hannaford that you profile here. However, the Food Lion stores I have visited are easy to shop, perishable quality in produce is consistently good and store pricing is far superior to Giant-MD and Safeway. The Food Lion ads are much more aggressive than Giant-MD and seem to be more aggressive than Giant-PA from comparing online. It seems to me that the Delhaize chains are better than the Ahold ones. The one unknown for me here is Giant-PA. I have not consistently shopped at a Giant-PA store since the early 1990s when I was in college. I off and on shopped with my parents at Giant-PA in the 2010s. I am very curious to see how Giant-PA stacks up now. From what I experienced shopping with my parents there in the 2010s Giant-PA is an average mid-line, average priced grocery. That is a far cry from the aggressive EDLP grocer that Giant-PA was in the 1990s. I remember "prepriced is repriced" and that sort of thing. I have a feeling that my grocery shopping where I'm moving to will be split between Food Lion, Walmart and Aldi. That puts me on the Delhaize side of things like the Hannaford in this post that impresses me so much.
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