EAGAN, Minn. — The doors of the Cub Foods grocery store in this middle-class suburban city open onto piles of picture-perfect peaches and nectarines nestled next to jewel-toned plums and grapes.
Around the corner, corn delivered in the morning from a local farm is heaped decoratively on one side of a wide, meandering path that guides shoppers through the produce section and toward the deli counter and sushi bar, where they can catch the aromas of freshly baked breads and doughnuts, a Cub specialty, a little farther away.
“You can pretty much be in Anywhere, U.S.A., in center store, but the perimeter is the fashion side of the grocery business,” said Sharon A. Lessard, chief designer at Supervalu, which operates Cub Foods stores as well as chains like Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s and Albertsons in some markets. “The perimeter is where we can best distinguish ourselves from everyone else.”
By center store, Ms. Lessard meant those long, soldier-straight rows of shelves that have long been the heart of the American grocery store but are now showing signs of the grocery equivalent of atherosclerosis. Shopping and eating patterns are changing, and those changes have threatening implications for the food companies whose shelf-stable products have long filled the center store.
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