Farmer Jack Stores, Closing for Good
Posted on 6 June 2007 under Food In The News, Shopping
Here’s part of the Associated Press article:
A&P … wants the [Farmer Jack] stores either sold or closed by the end of the first week in July … at least 21 stores received no bids, so their inventory will be sold and the stores will be padlocked.
There was a time when Farmer Jack was a viable grocery store in the Detroit area. I recall going to the location on Ford Road in Westland in late 1987 and being greatly impressed with their meat selection.
Times have changed, and grocery stores have changed as well. Some Farmer Jack locations seemed to have gotten lost in that particular shuffle, and I wonder if the Westland store in its 1950s building was one that was never improved. While the Telegraph Road location in Monroe was certainly one of the better locations I’d been to just last year, the one in Grand Blanc (south of Flint, where my parents shopped) seemed to get run right into the ground. The meat selection there (and I was last there in probably 2004) was one of the worst I’d ever seen … even the smaller butcher shop nearby at Colony Market, and Colony’s satelite location at the Flint Farmer’s Market, had considerably better meats. That Farmer Jack’s produce section didn’t fare too well either, and was basically under-managed. Put all this together with the Grand Blanc Farmer Jack space having been built as an older-style store in the late 1970s that was never expanded, and there also being a fairly-new Kroger in a larger and better space directly across Saginaw Rd./Dixie Hwy … basically, the Grand Blanc Farmer Jack was lucky to get any customers at all.
You hear a lot about how larger stores are pushing out smaller stores. There’s a lot of talk of this kind of thing in relation to Wal*Mart … that it seems they intentionally push smaller stores out. If this were true, particularly when it comes to grocery stores (i.e., Kroger and such), it wouldn’t just be some stores that would cease to exist and close up shop. The fact is, we have a lot of smaller shops, Erie IGA, the Fish Market on Telegraph near the state line, Zeiler’s, various farmer’s markets and fruit and vegetable stands, that continue to operate even with Kroger, Meijer and other larger stores nearby. These smaller operators stick to fairly specific niche markets, are well-managed, and seem to survive quite well that way.
It’s interesting how some “big box” stores seem to swallow up other stores like them in order to survive, like A&P buying Farmer Jack to compete with Kroger, or KMart absorbing Sears to compete with Wal*Mart, while smaller shops with real customer bases, like Colony Market in Grand Blanc, or the Fish Market here in Monroe County, not only survive but thrive. And meanwhile, the ones that don’t survive blame outside influences, such as “big box” stores instead of looking at how they may have possibly mis-managed their own niche market.
Will I miss Farmer Jack? Probably not, even though the Grand Blanc store’s deli made great stuffed cabbage rolls. Is Kroger to blame for Farmer Jack’s demise? Maybe, to some extent. But to me, recalling how sad the Grand Blanc store appeared, and its closing just last year, there’s more to it than that.
I feel bad for the now-unemployed staff though. I hope they can successfully move on.
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6 June 2007 @ 1:55 pm Posted by Renee
I used to shop at Farmer Jack back in the day because it was just closer to home, but eventually I decided to travel further away for cheaper prices on the same food .. They did have some tasty fresh Italian bread, though!
9 June 2007 @ 9:22 pm Posted by frenchfry
Farmer Jack was great prior to the A&P acquisition but then they just became A&P stores with a new name. I’m surprised they’ve lasted as long as they have. Their sales items were sometimes enough to keep us shopping there so we’ll miss them.