The venerable DC supermarket chain Giant, which has been a fixture here for nearly 70 years, is just not what it used to be.
I expounded on this last fall, after a series of annoying visits. And yesterday when I shopped there was I annoyed at yet more of their changes for the worse, from high prices to changing stock, as well as new policies — for some reason, they insist that you give them the “bonus card” to be scanned before they start ringing up your purchases. The computer is quite capable of scanning the card any time during check out, or even at the end, but some manager decided that this was a better way of doing it, and thus slows down the process because when the clerk is ready to start, you’re still down at the end of the belt unloading your cart. You have to make your way down, fumble with your wallet, and get your card out, then go back. Stupid. The lines are already way too long because there are so few cashiers working now, why make them longer? I guess they want to force you to use those self-checkout lanes.
Anyway. From today’s Washington Post, a story that tells of the final nail in the coffin:
The owners of Giant Food LLC moved yesterday to end local management of the grocery chain, putting hundreds of jobs at risk and closing a chapter at the Washington area retailer that pioneered the supermarket concept on Georgia Avenue in the District 68 years ago.
The Giant name will remain, but beleaguered Dutch conglomerate Royal Ahold NV, which bought the company almost six years ago, said it will hand over control of Giant’s operations to a team of Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. executives in Quincy, Mass.
…Giant is one of many homegrown institutions to be gobbled up by large, out-of-town corporations. Since their sales, once-dominant retailers Peoples Drug Stores, Woodward & Lothrop, Hechinger, Crown Books and Fantle’s Drug Stores have vanished. Technology leaders such as MCI Communications Corp. and America Online Inc. remain, but have experienced wrenching internal transformations.
…As an independent grocery chain, Giant built a loyal consumer base by developing a reputation as a customer-friendly, community-oriented retailer. When Ahold purchased it, officials promised the store would retain its strong community ties and vowed the Dutch company had the deep pockets to improve store operations.
Since then, Ahold officials have transformed the chain to compete against discounters, a change that accelerated as Ahold struggled to recover from a $1.1 billion financial scandal.
Wait a minute — they’re competing with discounters by raising prices?
In the spring of 2002, Bud Mattingly, then a deli food buyer at Giant, was assigned a full-time assistant whose $30,000-a-year salary was paid by a vendor. “When Giant was locally run, we did not allow vendors to do anything in the stores,” he said. “The company wanted Giant people doing Giant work.”
Some changes seemed small but upset employees. Giant executives in 2002 ended publication of a popular company newsletter, more than five decades old, called “We” that contained news on employees and their families. They replaced it with an internal company Web site.
Inside the company’s headquarters in Landover, former executive say, the company’s culture itself changed. Israel “Izzy” Cohen and his successor, Pete L. Manos, gained reputations as hands-on executives. Manos, former Giant executives say, began many mornings sitting in the lobby of Giant’s headquarters, greeting workers as they arrived.
By comparison, Baird, who replaced him after the merger, seemed aloof, some employees said. Baird kept his primary residence in Massachusetts and commuted between Boston and Landover. When Baird introduced himself to employees in 1999, according to two former executives, he said he would not be roaming the company’s corridors shaking hands. “He said he would be in his office on the sixth floor if anyone needed him,” one said.
… Jeff Metzger, publisher of Food World, a supermarket trade publication, said the changes have hurt Giant’s image with shoppers. In 2002, Giant reported little sales growth for the year despite opening three new stores. “The slippage in customer service has been a factor in that,” Metzger said.
More about this decline:
In the weeks following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., thousands of people camped on a muddy Mall to remember the fallen civil rights leader and protest treatment of the poor.
In a city rife with racial tension, its neighborhoods freshly ravaged by riots, Joseph Danzansky, the president of Giant Food LLC, pulled together other business leaders to provide $75,000 worth of food for the marchers.
It was one episode in the long, deep connection between the region’s biggest grocery chain and the community it served. Over its 68-year history, Giant has woven itself into the civic fabric of Washington to a degree few other companies have.
Over the years, it has discounted food for innumerable Little League teams and Boy Scout troops around the region. When the forklifts break down at the Capital Area Food Bank, warehouse workers from Giant come to fix them. For 37 years now it has sponsored “It’s Academic,” the Saturday-morning televised quiz show for local high school students.
“They’re a mainstay in the Washington nonprofit community, not just for us, but for so many groups,” said Lynn Brantley, president of the food bank.
And its executives, including local business stalwarts like Cohen and Danzansky, were among the business executives most engaged in the world beyond their own balance sheets. They were involved regional transportation and D.C. governance issues, among others.
Richard A. Baird, Giant’s outgoing chief executive, does not live in Washington; his home is in Boston and he spends a few days a week living out of a corporate apartment in Rockville. Baird is on the board of directors of the Board of Trade, a regional chamber of commerce, but rarely attended meetings or other local business events, say people familiar with his civic involvement.
I know. It’s an awfully long post about a supermarket. But the thing is, a grocery store becomes an important community spot, and this one has been in my life since I was born, since my father was born. In this area, you’re either a Giant customer or a Safeway customer, which is about as polarizing as being a Virginia person or a Maryland person. So, what do you do when you can no longer justify your allegiance?
