Month: May 2017

Jason Potter: Launching Safeway Talks

Posted on by Varinder Singh

I wanted to take this opportunity to start a conversation with you, our Safeway employees. Safeway has been a leader in Western Canada for many years, and a big part of our success has been our people and the work you do each day to create exceptional experiences for our customers.

For the last 18 months, I’ve spent my time focused on integrating our Western operations. With the majority of that work now behind us, I’m turning my attention to getting to know this team better and understanding what’s happening in your stores.

You’ve told us you want to hear more from us, and we see an opportunity to improve the lines of communication. Our leadership group would love to speak to you all one-on-one, but we can’t be in every store, every day. But we can use technology to connect with every employee, from Vancouver to Thunder Bay.

That is why we’re re-launching SafewayTalks.ca

SafewayTalks.ca is a pilot project with a simple but critical goal: to open the lines of communication and share the spirit and community of our people and our stores.

This website allows us to share some of the things we are working on and get feedback directly from you. It will also help you understand how we’re tackling the challenges and issues in front of us.

This continues to be an unprecedented time for retailers. The competitive landscape has changed significantly and so have the needs and wants of customers. During the transition, we made some decisions that hurt the customer experience in our stores, which I know you felt first hand and had to deal with personally.

We have made some improvements in the last year, such as more competitive pricing and an improved offer that reflects what our customers are asking for, but more needs to be done. As we look forward to a competitive and successful Safeway with secure jobs for the future, we have to make further changes to ensure our stores are viable and that our products and services resonate with customers.

Our challenges are not small and changes will take time, but it’s something we must tackle together. You have an important stake in our future, so let’s keep the lines of communications open.

Sign up to join and stay informed. And let’s start the conversation today.

Regards,

 

Jason Potter
Executive Vice President, Operations

Explaining Project Sunrise

Posted on by Varinder Singh

Explaining Project Sunrise

Some big changes are happening at Sobeys Inc, Safeway’s parent company.

We have a new President and CEO in Michael Medline, who has a strong history in the retail sector and deep experience in creating highly effective change.

In a nutshell, here is what he is aiming to do with Sobey’s Inc:

We’re going to get out of our own way.

A task that begins in our corporate office, with ‘Project Sunrise’.

“We have an aggressive goal to transform our organization, better serve our customers, empower our employees and assuredly move from defense to offense in the market. To do this we need to unleash the talents and scale we already have at our disposal.” – Michael Medline, President & CEO.

‘Project Sunrise’ is a bold move that will transform our organization allowing us to better serve our customers, empower our employees and move from defense to offense in the many markets in which we operate. This will happen over the next three years, ultimately bringing $500 million in savings each year and much more efficiency throughout our system. In the future we will operate with a simpler, leaner structure, more efficient core processes and tools.

Here’s what we are doing: 

  • We are moving from a regional to national structure to remove overlap, minimize our own bureaucracy and excessive processes so we can just get things done better, faster and cheaper for everyone.
  • We will simplify our relationships with vendors by centralizing where it makes sense so we can increase our purchasing power.
  • We are committed to continually improving the efficiency and productivity of the company across the country.

Why are we doing this?

Our customers shop differently now than they did even a few years ago, and we need to reconnect with those customers. We face new and different competitors with globally deep pockets. At Safeway, we have some of the highest costs in our industry.

Starting with ‘Project Sunrise’ we are making big changes to better service our stores and our customers.

We are going to need your help to get there.

We know you have concerns as well.

So we are going to do a better job of communicating and listening.

You will hear more from your store managers and regional leadership about the changes as they happen.

And we want to hear from you as this work unfolds.

Please engage with us on Safeway Talks to keep up to date on news, and to let us know what you think.

Safeway Sherwood Park Mall: Bigger, better

Posted on by Varinder Singh

At the end of April, the team at Safeway Sherwood Park Mall unveiled their newly-relocated, 64,7000 square foot store to hundreds of customers.

As the grocery landscape continues to change, this store is keeping up with those changes.

Safeway Sherwood Park Mall now boasts new features to help residents eat better and more affordably.

What does that look like?

  • An expanded bulk and liquid bulk section – which lets consumers buy how much they need, when they need it.
  • A carvery station – to ensure our customers have the freshest meat, cut the way they want it.
  • A Community Room and a Starbucks – so we continue to be not just a store, but a gathering place for our customers.
  • A Wellbeing and Natural Source section –with knowledgeable, specialized staff to answer questions and help our customers make better food choices.

We’re giving back to the community as well. Safeway employees celebrated the grand opening with a food hamper donation worth $1,000 to the Strathcona Food Bank.

We want to return to our role as one of Western Canada’s leading grocery stores. We’re facing our challenges head on. That is why we’re looking for opportunities to improve the overall shopping experience for our customers in an extremely competitive environment. We’re excited by our new store in Sherwood Park. It is a store that gives customers what they are asking for. And it’s a store you can be proud of.

Check out this video:

How are we going to get customers back in our stores?

Posted on by Varinder Singh

This is our highest priority. If Safeway is going to be a leader again in the West, we simply have to be the best place for customers to shop. And we have to win back the customers who left us.

Every action we take is to get customers in our stores. Here are a few examples:

  • We have taken action to lower prices. We will continue to be competitive in all markets.
  • We will focus on fresh produce, meats, seafood and bakeries, things Safeway is known for.
  • We will update our product offerings to make sure they meet changing customer needs – more ready-made meals, more ethnic foods, more health conscience products.
  • We will make store conditions, store standards and customer service priorities.

The other key part of that is getting you, our employees, to tell our story. If you’re excited about Safeway then we know our customers will be. That is why we’re going to keep talking with you.

Customers still ask about the change in private label brands, what do we tell them?

Posted on by Varinder Singh

The simple truth is that to deliver more competitive prices and keep products on shelves, we needed a single private label program. But not just any private label program, a quality program that has been rigorously tested over many years.

From a business perspective, it didn’t make sense to manage competing programs and products. Plus there were some stipulations as part of the acquisition that required us to make changes.

A significant amount of work went into reviewing all the private labels products to ensure we were bringing the “best of the best” into our new consolidated private label lineup, including customer favourites such as Lucerne, Best Buy Cheese and Edwards Coffee. While we did in-store sampling and demos and promoted items extensively in the weekly flyer, we could have done more to better explain the changes to employees and customers.

So if customers ask about the private label change, let them know we have built a consolidated program that incorporates the “best of” the former Safeway private label and are happy to have them sample any product they’d like.

And let them know we are constantly evolving and refining the products we are offering. Our products will continue to change with their tastes.

We are proud of our national private label program and want it to be the best store brand in the country. It’s up to us to collectively make that happen.

In my store, we have people coming in and complaining that everyday items are missing. How are we addressing this?

Posted on by Varinder Singh

This has been a complaint from customers and from employees. We understand how frustrating it is to have a customer unhappy, and we should have done better.

Consolidating Sobeys and Safeway operations proved to be more challenging than we anticipated and resulted in some unintended consequences on the shelves. As part of the integration, we had to completely redo the technology that runs our stores but we’ve made significant progress and there should be noticeable improvements in your stores now that new tools are in place like CAO (Computer Assisted Ordering) and FIM (Fresh Inventory Management).

These tools have helped us work through many of our out-of-stock problems and are now creating efficiencies in how we work, but we recognize there is more to be done. We continue to refine our process in the back shop and in our regional supply chains and vendor relationships. Through Project Sunrise, we are currently in the process of simplifying our structure to allow our office teams to operate more efficiently and make better, faster decisions that will ultimately benefit our stores, our employees and customers

We are also investing in new technology to help us do this. We’re very excited by the automated warehouse that, once fully functional, will service our stores in Western Canada starting in June and bring some significant benefits to our stores. Store-friendly pallets will soon arrive, built with products from the same aisles, making it easier and faster for teams to unload weekly deliveries. It’s the final piece of our consolidated distribution network that will make sure you get the items in your stores when customers need them. You’ll be hearing more about this in the next few months.