Quality and knowledge
I start off with the small Turkish supermarket around the corner of my house. They have delicious dolma’s and many types of stuffed olives, that’s what I specifically go for. Delicious!

As I have my fixed grocery route, the next stop is the Produce Market, for daily fresh vegetables. A nice old-fashioned vegetable shop, with goods proudly displayed in front of the store’s window. And I know “my” greengrocer as a real connoisseur. The ‘newest’ exotic fruits and vegetables; just ask and he knows anything about it. Although it looks like his shop has been around for an eternity, he offers the latest food trends, and works to cater to our changing flavor needs.

A little further is the bakery. A beautiful neighborhood store, which has been the family pride for decades. Despite the large supermarket chains nearby, that also sell baked goods, this bakery is holding up well. Competing against supermarket prices is tough, but they will undoubtedly remain prominent in this neighborhood for years to come in terms of quality, service and personal conversation.

Innovation
Don’t think that these local shops don’t innovate! Of course they don’t have a lot of capital to do that on a large scale. But that isn’t necessary. With one aspect they are definitely ahead of my local supermarkets!

The baker packs his crisp white loaves of bread and those oven-fresh buns in quite a magnificent way. The produce market bags his asparagus and tomatoes in a likely fashion. Even though the baker often uses a paper window bag, and the greengrocer uses a variety of paper, plastic of mesh bags – both use the same unique way of packing.

You might say ‘bags, nothing new’. And that’s true. However, what makes it fantastic is how they close their bags. They close all of these bags with the Innoseal® Bag Closer. The neck of the bag passes through the machine smoothly – with a simple movement that bag is closed. One of the two supermarkets in my area also has a bag-closing system in the vegetable and bread department, but there is a difference between those closing systems and the Innoseal® Sealer (which the Bakery and Produce Market use).

Re-closeable closure
The Innoseal® bag closing system has a re-sealable closure, a genius combination of tape and paper, while that of the supermarket only consists of sticky tape. Because of the easy to open tape-paper closure it is very simple to take a few sandwiches or tomatoes out of my bags, and close them again to put away for a next serving.

The supermarket’s sealers do not have that advantage; it’s a struggle to open the closure without breaking the bag in the process too. And if it does succeed, with the help of a knife or scissors for example, you can no longer close the bag with that same piece of tape.

When asked, the baker says that his customers greatly appreciate the easy-open closures of theInnoseal® Bag Sealer. Bread stays fresh longer. And if you have to pay attention to the little ones, that’s a nice fact, since this closure is safe – no wires will enter your little customers’ intestines!
I wonder when the supermarkets will follow this innovative produce market and bakery!

Ronald Haring

Marketing Communication Specialist