The discount retailer, Grocery Outlet, opened its newest store in Englewood on March 13.
The store on Taywood Road marks the seventh Grocery Outlet location in Ohio.
Englewood’s new Grocery Outlet store is owned and operated by a mother and son team, Mayram Jones Hamilton and Eric Jones.
"What makes grocery outlet unique is that it's an extreme value retailer. So it's main focus is delivering as much value to the customer as possible," Jones said. "And they do that through a combination of different strategies, mainly it is buying opportunistically."
Grocery Outlet has more than 500 stores across the nation. They sell name brand and fresh products for a fraction of the price.
The company often sells goods for 40 to 70% less than big retailers through "opportunistic" buying, according to Jones.
"So if there's ever a product surplus, product overrun, a packaging change, or a supplier just needs to get rid of their inventory for some reason and they're just getting rid of it at a low price, Grocery Outlet will come in, buy up that inventory, and then pass those savings on to the end consumer," Jones said. "And to supplement that, they also have their own private label brand — so that way we can also provide the staple items that are not going to come up opportunistically as often at affordable prices as well."
He said they decided to apply to run the Englewood store after his mother discovered Grocery Outlet’s cheaper prices for her family in 2016 and 2017.
"That very quickly became her main, go-to store where we did all of our shopping," he said. "And after going to our local store for a bit she met the operator there and became friends with him and got introduced to the business model side of it.”
After eight months of training, Jones and his mother were selected to run the new store in Englewood.
"I actually joined right after I graduated university. So the timing kind of lined up really well," he said. "I did my graduation walk and then the next week I was training in stores."
Jones said the community has expressed gratitude for bringing a store to their community that experiences higher levels of food insecurity.
"We've heard a lot of, 'Thank you for opening here. Thank you for coming out here. You know, we really needed something like this,'" he said. "So I think the main reason is just like the need was there."
He said he is proud to offer more affordable prices during a time of rising costs and inflation, including lower prices on eggs, meat and produce.
“I think our prices are still on the low end which actually kind of helps in an inflationary environment because we can still provide that value to customers," he said.
