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Supermarket partnerships with well-respected, locally owned artisan bakeries can help elevate the quality of the grocers' bakery offerings and boost their connections with the community.
For many chains, partnering with local bakeries allows individual stores to tailor their offerings to the particular preferences of their customer bases, whether that means offering fresh baguettes from a well-known bakery across town or rounds of rye from a bakery elsewhere in the region that has a strong reputation.
At Parsippany, N.J.-based Kings Food Markets, for example, individual store managers in the 25-store chain can select from a list of approved items supplied by local bakeries, most of which are based in New York City.
"We leave it open to the stores to select what they will offer, based on what consumers are asking for, and what they think they can sell," says Michael Batta, director of bakery sales and merchandising at Kings.
In addition to partnerships with...