Caraluzzi’s set to be Danbury’s latest grocery store
When La Placita Bethel Market opened its doors earlier this year, it gave shoppers along Danbury’s southwest border a new food option beyond the nearby Caraluzzi’s Bethel Market, along with Price Rite, several corner stores, and larger supermarkets a slightly longer hike away.
With its newest store near Danbury’s western border with New York, it is Caraluzzi’s that will be offering Danbury shoppers the latest alternative on what is shaping up as Connecticut’s latest “grocery row” — with the Caraluzzi’s sign now under assembly near the base of the hill where a residential construction boom is continuing.
This week, Caraluzzi’s kicked off a hiring push to staff up its newest store with an on-site job fair that brought a steady trickle of applicants in the first hour, in what has been the toughest labor market in memory from the perspective of employers. Also hiring a short distance away on Mill Plain Road are Super Stop & Shop and Trader Joe’s, with Whole Foods Market just a short hop across Interstate 84 opposite the Danbury Fair mall.
Caraluzzi’s considered Danbury Fair as a location for the new store along with adjacent properties, according to CEO Mark Caraluzzi, but elected for the Mill Plain Road parcel where it plans to open in the coming weeks with no target date specified.
Proximity, price, vibe
If not packing the wow factor of Wegman’s or Amazon Fresh which are prepping their Connecticut debuts, with its fourth store Caraluzzi’s is passing its more-famous homegrown and family-owned chain — Stew Leonard’s, which has three stores in its home state including on the DanburyBrookfield border just north of Bethel.
Stew Leonard’s has several more stores in New York and New Jersey, including at the Paramus Park Mall where it opened in September 2019 as one of the handful of chains to try the mall format for a new store.
Most grocers have flourished since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when shoppers discovered their inner chefs while avoiding dining out — or flat-out hoarded food as shortages cropped up repeatedly across varying staples.
In 2020, Ahold Delhaize saw sales jump 13.3 percent on average at its U.S. stores, which include Stop & Shop, Hannaford and Food Lion. This past spring, same-store sales popped again by 6.4 percent from the same stretch in 2021. The company is now investing $140 million for upgrades in its metropolitan New York City region stores in an effort to widen the appeal to varying demographic groups.
Shoppers continue to cite proximity as the biggest factor influencing their shopping, according to a McKinsey poll last year, followed by prices for name-brand products.
Connecticut has more than 300 grocery stores stocking the broad product mix of a supermarket, excluding any number more big-box options like BJ’s Wholesale Club, Costco, Target and Walmart; specialty food outlets; neighborhood convenience stores; country markets; and farmers markets.
Excluding A&P’s exit as part of a bankruptcy dissolution, only one major chain has missed the postpandemic surge in Connecticut — Shaw’s, which elected to close its Connecticut stores several years ago to focus on more than 125 locations in the other five New England states under parent Albertson’s.
Rivals were quick to pounce on the former Shaw’s stores, with ShopRite and sister chain Price Rite taking over several locations along with Stop & Shop, and The Fresh Market opening an upscale store in Westport.
Stop & Shop dominates the Connecticut market today with 88 locations, more than double the number for ShopRite and Big Y World Class Market. But smaller chains and independent markets have been able to thrive in close proximity to the larger chains, competing on familiarity over generations, discounts, selection, service, vibe, environmental impact, or other shopper preferences.
Strength in numbers
While some of Connecticut’s supermarkets are family owned and other are run by large national companies, some grocers in the state operate in what essentially is a hybrid model. Such is the case with ShopRite stores, which in Connecticut are owned by local families, but which operate with help of the New Jersey-based Wakefern Food grocery cooperative.
Wakefern serves as the logistics, distribution and merchandising arm for ShopRite, which has eight ownership groups that operate ShopRite stores in Connecticut, according to Wakefern spokesperson Megan Annecchiarico.
The Cingari family is the largest ownership group with 11 ShopRite stores in Fairfield and New Haven counties under the Grade A Markets corporate name.
That is one more than Adams Hometown Supermarkets which is owned by the Cheshire-based wholesale grocery distributor Bozzuto’s, with locations in Canterbury, Deep River, East Lyme, Lisbon, Milford, Portland, Shelton, Terryville, Thomaston and Watertown. In addition to its two warehouses in Cheshire, Bozzuto’s also has a distribution center in North Haven.
Further east along the Interstate 95 corridor, Harry Garafalo owns five ShopRite locations in Milford, Orange, Stratford, Hamden, and East Haven.
Further north, Waverly Markets is owned by the Cohen family and operates ShopRites in Manchester, Vernon and East Hartford. ShopRite stores in Southington and Wallingford are owner by members of the Drust family through a limited liability company that bears their name.
On the eastern shoreline and up the Thames River valley, the Capano family owns and operates ShopRite locations in Clinton, New London and Norwich under the Five Star Supermarkets corporate moniker. Paul Tornaquindici owns and operates ShopRite of Bristol and a sibling store in Waterbury. ShopRite of Canton is owned by Joseph Family Markets.
Wayne Pesce, president of the Connecticut Food Association, said being part of a cooperative allows local ShopRite owners to focus on the day-to-day operations of their stores.
“It’s the old strength in numbers mentality,” Pesce said. “It gives them buying power they wouldn’t otherwise have as smaller individual chains.”
East Windsor-based Geissler’s Supermarkets has stores in Bloomfield, East Windsor, Granby, Somers, South Windsor, Windsor and one western Massachusetts location in Agawam. The chain takes its name from A.F. Geissler who started delivering groceries in 1923 to residents of the Broad Brook section of East Windsor, more than a quarter century before Caraluzzi’s got its start in Bethel.
Manchester-based Highland Park Markets traces its roots to 1886 when William White opened a small general store. The store changed hands in 1958, when it was purchased by Jack Devanney. Devanney’s son Tim began operating the store in 1985 and expanded to locations in Glastonbury and Farmington. Today, five of his six children are in the business and have taken over the day to day operations of the stores.
Stew Leonard’s likewise has been grooming the next generation of family who might run the company one day. And Caraluzzi’s could be on that path as well, with five great-great-grandchildren of Anthony Caraluzzi Sr. having worked this summer in varying roles, from cashiers and online order pickers to accounts payable, information technology and marketing. Mark Caraluzzi said he is making no predictions for now on the youngest group to join the family business.