Woolworths unveils new-look flagship store featuring ‘living’ lettuce, meal kits and $14 chooks

WOULD you pay nearly double the current price for your Woolies roast chook? The supermarket is about to find out.

HYDROPONIC lettuce, ready meals and $14 roast chickens.

Woolworths has unveiled its new flagship store at Marrickville Metro in Sydney’s inner-west, featuring expanded fresh food, ready-to-go meals and health offerings, overhauled bakery, deli, butcher and seafood areas, and a dedicated front-of-store pick-up area for online shopping orders.

The latest renewal, which Woolworths says is the largest individual investment in a store since the program began in late 2015, also showcases products from local brands including Hellenic Patisserie and Pepe Saya.

“We set out three objectives nearly 11 months ago,” Woolworths managing director Claire Peters said. “Customers told us that they wanted a more convenient offer that was good for them and easy to shop, we wanted to put fresh food and health at the heart of the store, and the third was how can we bring neighbourhood greengrocers and local products into the store.”

The new “flame-roasted” chickens, which retail for $14 compared with $7.90 for the standard convection oven-cooked version, are “marinated with breadcrumbs, herbs and the juice of half a lemon” and “perfect for family dinners”, according to Woolworths.

The supermarket has also introduced “Ready to Create” meal kit bags similar to Hello Fresh, Youfoodz or Marley Spoon, the first meal kit concept available at a mainstream Australian retailer.

In the expanded fresh food section, jets of mist keep the produce cool while the “Living Lettuce” hydroponic growing set up “means the lettuce continues to grow until you place it in your shopping trolley”.

Ms Peters said the changes were tested in interviews with thousands of Marrickville customers, resulting in a “next generation” shopping experience and “rustic yet future-proof design with a real community spirit”. The refresh required the Marrickville store to hire an additional 62 staff, bringing the total to 278.

Picture: Dallas Kilponen/PPR

Picture: Dallas Kilponen/PPR

Picture: Dallas Kilponen/PPR

Woolworths managing director Claire Peters.

The former executive with UK retailer Tesco, who started in the top job last June, said she spent the first three months visiting stores, meeting customers and staff, and listening in to customer service calls.

“I spent three or four days listening in to what customers were ringing in for, which weren’t always complaints,” she said. “They ranged from, can I get a product in this store [to] wanting to understand more about online and pick-up. Of course there was an element of some disappointing team attitudes in stores.”

According to Ms Peters, the key learning from those calls was that Woolworths needed to better communicate its promotions to customers.

“Whenever we do something new, ensuring that at the support office we really watch how we communicate through the lens of the customers,” she said. “I knew it was a great promotion, but if the customer didn’t know about it, it’s a complete waste of time.”

She also spent time meeting customers face-to-face in stores. “When I’m in the stores, I will go up to customers and I will do that in our competitors as well in a very friendly way, just wanting to know, ‘Why do you not shop at Woolworths?’” Ms Peters said.

“I’ve learned some aspects there — it can be convenience, it could just be because they know the store, and there will also be elements of things we can be better on.

“Customers in particular Woolworths stores would want more range suited for their local area, they’d want more help on affordable, healthy pricing, and in some cases they would just want better direction around the store.”

Ms Peters said the retail space was changing by the day and she was “incredibly curious” to watch the rollout of Amazon’s queue-free “grab-and-go” supermarket concept, Amazon Go. “Does it scare me? No. Does it make me curious, does it make me want to see if it will do well and how it would adapt to us? Yes, of course, I have a very curious nature,” she said.

“This space is changing by the day and some of that will come from the US or Europe, but some will come from other industries as well, not just supermarkets. You wrap all that together and bring it back and ask, does it fit our local Australian customer. That’s truly only what I’m interested in.

“I have some confidence that I’ve run stores myself, I’ve worked in buying, so I know how the wheels move, and I have some confidence that strategies work when you never forget the customer.”

Ms Peters, who started her career in retail at the age of 16 working at the checkout and is now the country’s first female supermarket boss, said she wasn’t offended by the term “checkout chick”.

“I’m very proud to show that I’ve done a number of roles in the store, and a checkout is such an important part of the operation and it tends to be where customers will have that contact,” she said.

“I don’t get fazed by being ‘female’ or ‘girl’, etc. My role is to do a great job as an individual for the team that I work with, that’s all I’m interested in.”

Woolworths has a 36.8 per cent market share of Australia’s $100 billion supermarket sector, followed by Coles on 30.9 per cent, Aldi on 8.6 per cent and Metcash on 7.5 per cent, according to market research firm IBISWorld.

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