He noted that the company's beach locations generally do their highest volumes in the summer, but he expects the new store to perform well year-round because it is located in the development. “When they start selling, we really think this is going to be a home-run unit.” “The residential real estate market is slow right now, but there are new residential units all around this development, and new ones that are going to be built,” he said. Our typical deli-bakery might do 10% of store sales, but Newton does 25% to 30%.”Īsked for a projection of total-store sales at the new Piggly Wiggly prototype, Schools offered a one-word answer: “Big.” “We are amazed at the percent of sales we do in the deli-bakery-prepared foods area at Newton Farms. “We took what we did at Newton Farms and expanded it,” Schools explained. One of the defining elements of Newton Farms is its focus on prepared foods and meal solutions, something that has become the core of the design at the new Piggly Wiggly experimental store. The company even brought Newton Farms' chef over to the new Myrtle Beach location. Many of the elements of the Newton Farms concept were borrowed for the development of the new Myrtle Beach prototype, he said. “We spent a lot of time designing that, and we think we can build it out.” “With the Newton Farms banner, we can go where we want,” Schools explained. Newton Farms, the chain's three-year-old single-store operation in the upscale resort community of Kiawah Island, S.C., and also named after the founder, has fewer restrictions on its geography than the Piggly Wiggly banner, however. It generally builds about three or four new or replacement stores per year. Piggly Wiggly owns its own construction firm, called Newton Builders after the chain's founder, Joseph T. Schools said the company will look for sites “in any market that's not a rural market - it could be Charleston or Columbia S.C., or Savannah, Ga.” “They are going to be calling me up and saying, ‘I've got a great spot for a new Pig.’” “To a man and woman, they were enthusiastic about this store, and they all want to build one in their area,” he said. He said that when he recently met with some of his key regional operations people, they were excited about the potential for the concept. “We are going to aggressively look for opportunities.” “We want to give this one a little time and see how it does before we blow it out, but that will happen pretty fast, we think,” Schools said.
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But the new format will seek to reach a more affluent customer base than many of its stores do, allowing it to expand in new communities within its current territory. Other franchisees on the outskirts of Piggly Wiggly Carolina's operating area prevent the company from expanding in some directions, Schools explained. He said the company - which operates about 125 Piggly Wiggly locations, mostly in South Carolina, as a franchisee, and supplies another 25 Piggly Wiggly franchises within its operating area - is looking at both the new Piggly Wiggly format and the company's upscale Newton Farms banner as opportunities to grow the company. “We will always serve the small towns and the local rural folks like we do today, but this store positions us to where we want to go in the future.” “This has really been a three-year to four-year-long process,” Schools told SN.
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The layout parallels in some ways the food groupings that have been tested at Food Lion's Bloom concept and in Marsh Supermarkets' lifestyle stores, but Piggly Wiggly infused some new ideas into the format and wrapped the whole store in a thick coat of Southern charm. Canned, fresh and frozen vegetables are together in one section, for example, while in the bakery area shoppers can find not only store-baked goods but manufacturer-baked products as well, along with all the components needed for customers to bake from scratch at home.
#PIGGLY WIGGLY MYRTLE BEACH SERIES#
The 43,000-square-foot store represents a rethinking of traditional grocery merchandising - no long rows of gondolas with endless stacks of jars and cans, but instead a series of sections based on categories of food. “We have done other cutting-edge things, so we said, ‘Why not do this?’”
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“We are sticking our neck out, but it makes sense,” said David Schools, chief executive officer of the North Charleston, S.C.-based company, in an interview with SN at the store's grand opening. With the opening last month of an experimental new store in an upscale development in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. But The Pig, as it is affectionately known, is getting gussied up.
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For the past 60 years Piggly Wiggly has been a big name in the small towns of South Carolina.