Hy-Vee with full-service floral expands into Twin Cities market
Hy-Vee with full-service floral expands into Twin Cities market
NEW HOPE, MN — Two new Hy-Vee supermarkets opened Sept. 22 in the Twin Cities, both with full-service floral departments and locally grown product, offering one-stop shopping to its customers. In the late 1980s several grocery floral centers in the Twin Cities provided full service but the numbers have dwindled to nearly zero, so Hy-Vee will be filling a much needed niche.
Ashley Dimmit, floral manager; Rita Peters, assistant vice president of floral; and Cara Beauchaine, floral team member, are prepared and excited to help floral customers Sept. 22 at the opening of the Twin Cities’ first Hy-Vee store.“We are a full-service floral shop,” Rita Peters, assistant vice president of floral at Hy-Vee, told The Produce News. “We do weddings, funerals, we do deliveries and we do events — everything you’d expect from a retail shop.”
As part of the new stores’ openings, the floral departments were selling gigantic, 100-centimeter-long, large-headed South American roses, and five-inch phalaenopsis orchids in clay pots at special pricing, along with fuel-saver rewards attached to certain bouquets. Plus, flowers and plants were cross-merchandised in nearly every other area of the stores and customers were snapping up the specials. Locally grown products are important both to Hy-Vee and to its customers, and this definitely applies to floral.
“We source locally grown product,” Peters said. “In fact, we have Minnesota-grown mums and some kalanchoes, along with some Minnesota-grown bouquets.” Complementing those products are field-grown flowers and branches from neighboring Wisconsin that are used in design work.
Peters said that the first day of business in the Hy-Vee floral centers was pretty much nonstop and she was very pleased with the turnout. “We’ve been training staff for several weeks, but you don’t really know what to expect until the customers actually show up,” said Peters.
