Haggen Debuts New Market At Spring/Palo Verde (former Albertsons Site)
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(June 20, 2015, 6:55 p.m.) -- Workers aimed to open by 4:00 p.m. Saturday (June 20) and they beat their deadline: by 1:00 p.m. a brand new Haggen market (in place of the former Albertsons) was open for business in the Spring St./Palo Verde shopping area (NW quadrant.)
Here's a very quick look at what we saw at the Long Beach store just hours after opening:
[Scroll down for photos and further.]
A Haggen spokesperson emailed us this statement:
[Haggen text] We're a full-line grocery store with a bias toward fresh, quality, organic, local, and "healthy for you" options, so that guests can do all their shopping with us instead of traveling to multiple stores...The new Haggen stores open at about 25 percent "Haggen-ized." It will take time to completely infuse the store with the full Haggen experience. We make certain immediate changes with our opening -- branding and décor changes, as well as enhanced offerings in our Fresh departments such as Produce and Meat/Seafood. But it is a journey, as we like to say, so guests can expect to see continued improvements over the upcoming weeks, months and year.
Haggen will, at a minimum, double in size its offering of leafy, wet organic produce, adding big, center-section tables filled both front and back with organic fruits and vegetables (as much as possible based on stores' individual size and layout). Our goal is to offer more than 250 organic produce items. Haggen is changing out thousands of tags (in the neighborhood of 30,000). Examples include:
Produce: Enhanced selection on Organic with increased item variety, selection and pre-pack offerings for easy grab-and-go
Meat/seafood: Grass fed and Double R choice beef, Natural pork, Free range chicken, Santa Monica Seafood
Deli: Great assortment of fresh, house-made salads. Outstanding offering of meats and cheese. "Grandma Haggen" signature salads in the service deli.
Bakery: Local, fresh, full and abundant, including Haggen's famous cinnamon rolls baked fresh throughout the day
Center Store: More gluten-free, specialty, natural and "healthy for you" options (e.g., Acure and Alaffia Natural Health & Beauty items)
Floral: Fresh cut flowers from local growers
Beverage: Local brews, wines, sodas and more will be featured
As of [June 20], new to the Pacific Southwest grocer Haggen will have opened 100 stores in 100 days -- an unprecedented expansion from 18 stores with 16 pharmacies to 164 stores with 106 pharmacies; from 2,000 employees to more than 10,000 employees; and from a Pacific Northwest company with locations in Oregon and Washington to a major regional grocery chain with locations in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona.
As part of its historic growth, Haggen is donating more than one million pounds of food to local food banks and $100,000 to local non-profits from the 100 new store conversions that have taken place throughout California, Arizona and Nevada starting in March through June 20.
A knowledgeable source told us to try Haggen's cinnamon rolls -- recommended as "off the chart" terrific -- and the sample piece we tried was indeed quite good (and we don't usually like cinnamon stuff.) They're in boxed in sets of four. One shopper picking up a box said she'd lived in the pacific northwest and is glad Haggen is here.
