Roundy's Focuses On Chicago For Niche Grocery Stores

Roundy’s Supermarkets is at the confluence of two trends that are reordering the U.S. supermarket industry.

Its conventional grocery stores, including Rainbow Foods in the Twin Cities, have been hit hard by low-price competitors from Wal-Mart to Target to Costco. Once the Twin Cities’ No. 2 grocery chain, Rainbow is now fourth, and in the past 13 months it has targeted 15 percent of its stores here for closing.

At the same time, a shift toward higher-end, niche stores has created opportunity elsewhere. Roundy’s is attacking the Chicago market with a new kind of store, Mariano’s Fresh Market, that mixes the best of a Rainbow with higher-end touches more associated with chains like Whole Foods or Lunds and Byerly’s.

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