Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

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Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Bakeragr »

A new shopping center in Glen Carbon, IL, is in the works and will contain a new Meijer. Glen Carbon is next to Edwardsville, IL, home of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. They're both to the northeast of St. Louis, but very much part of the metropolitan area.
Sounds like Menards has backed out of the development and in its place, Meijer has signed a lease. No construction date is mentioned, however. I know they've had a Meijer in the works in Effingham, IL for like four years now and it's still not started. I kind of doubt this one drags out that long, because it sounds like the developer wants to get going. I'm not as familiar with the Illinois (Metro East) side of the area, but Edwardsville is a nice area and this spot is considered infill, as development has surrounded this former orchard for 20 years.

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... inois.html

I'm very excited to see Meijer head west. It'll be interesting to see if they add additional locations. That would make sense, like when they entered Cleveland and Wisconsin.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Bakeragr »

I guess I should add that Fresh Thyme, which is somehow related to Meijer, already has six locations in the St. Louis area. In addition, there is a "Fresh Thyme Market" in an emerging area called The Foundry that is close to St. Louis University and the Washington University Medical School. For some reason that store is not listed on the Fresh Thyme website. I haven't been to it. I have only been to one Fresh Thyme store, in Town and Country, MO, and it didn't really impress me. If I'm driving into the city and want to go to a store with unique food items, I'm just going to go to Trader Joe's. I don't really need exclusively organic, free range stuff. I would think most of the stuff you can get at Fresh Thyme you can get at your local Dierbergs or Schnucks anyway.

I wonder if Shop 'n Save folding caused Meijer to see an opening in the market. St. Louis unfortunately doesn't have a very growing population, but they entered Cleveland, and I think its growth is even less, so that isn't an issue for Meijer, I guess.
Last edited by Bakeragr on May 11th, 2022, 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Romr123 »

The Fresh Thyme in Foundry sounds a lot like what Meijer has been opening up here in unusual settings--there are a couple in Detroit and one in Grand Rapids. The two in Detroit: one is just outside Downtown; the other is in a hospital-focused strip center in the suburbs (Royal Oak) on the grounds of Beaumont Medical Center. There formerly was a grocery-focused strip center (1960s era) which essentially the medical center took over, then redeveloped with restaurants and the Neighborhood Market.

They have some really good customization to meet the needs of the neighborhood--lots of high end and local grab and go; local coffee shop, good produce, interesting liquor/wine/beer; high-end local case-ready meat/deli. (i.e. not IBP generic ground beef). They are aggressive about reaching out for new novel vendors and have pretty skilled store-level leadership who have adapted the offerings smartly. They have a good mix of Meijer and name brands, but don't run a traditional weekly ad (and don't offer Meijer prices, but aren't out of line, given the quality/uniqueness. Self check-out.

This seems like the same concept and really isn't the same as Fresh Thyme (which at least around here has service meat/bake-off/service deli). Much lighter on "natural"/vitamins/supplements.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by storewanderer »

Bakeragr wrote: May 11th, 2022, 10:43 am I guess I should add that Fresh Thyme, which is somehow related to Meijer, already has six locations in the St. Louis area. In addition, there is a "Fresh Thyme Market" in an emerging area called The Foundry that is close to St. Louis University and the Washington University Medical School. For some reason that store is not listed on the Fresh Thyme website. I haven't been to it. I have only been to one Fresh Thyme store, in Town and Country, MO, and it didn't really impress me. If I'm driving into the city and want to go to a store with unique food items, I'm just going to go to Trader Joe's. I don't really need exclusively organic, free range stuff. I would think most of the stuff you can get at Fresh Thyme you can get at your local Dierbergs or Schnucks anyway.

I wonder if Shop 'n Save folding caused Meijer to see an opening in the market. St. Louis unfortunately doesn't have a very growing population, but they entered Cleveland, and I think its growth is even less, so that isn't an issue for Meijer, I guess.
Foundry seems to be hidden on the website. I got there via Google.
https://www.freshthyme.com/City-Foundry ... sh-produce

Foundry has no sale circular and seems to have a lot of Meijer products.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Bakeragr »

It really does look like the Fresh Thyme Foundry Market is basically just like the other one-off markets that Meijer has done in Grand Rapids and elsewhere in Michigan. My guess is they thought St. Louis wasn't familiar with the Meijer name so they labeled it with Fresh Thyme branding? It's odd that it isn't really a Fresh Thyme, though, either.
I am very curious where else Meijer will build in the St. Louis area, should they bring a handful of more stores.
I think they could make some inroads. While Missouri is very much Walmart country, St. Louis really isn't dominated by Walmart quite like Kansas City or other areas to the west and south.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Romr123 »

Yeah, there were historically alternatives to Walmart (Target was early in St. Louis; and Venture was started by May Department Stores in St. Louis cloning Target) in St. Louis. WM only came in as far as Arnold/Eureka until the late 80s and didn't bring Supercenters in originally (the Schnucks/Dierbergs quality image warded off Walmart for a long time)
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Mgomrjsurf »

Fresh Thyme Market was to expand to KC area and hasen't yet even with lots of Developments adding Grocery Stores in area in the future.
Hopefully it expands to MO side of St. Louis and other parts of MO.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Bagels »

Fresh Thyme is basically a Sprouts clone, although it’s tried to reinvent / differentiate itself in the past two years. Stores are small (mostly around 20K sq ft) and focus on meat and produce. In contrast, Meijer stores are similar in size and offerings to typical Walmart Supercenters.

Meijer is believed to own Fresh Thyme. The chain has been largely stagnant over the past several years, after predicting it could open dozens of stores each year… probably a bust. Gotta wonder how long before it merges with Sprouts.
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: May 17th, 2022, 4:42 am Fresh Thyme is basically a Sprouts clone, although it’s tried to reinvent / differentiate itself in the past two years. Stores are small (mostly around 20K sq ft) and focus on meat and produce. In contrast, Meijer stores are similar in size and offerings to typical Walmart Supercenters.

Meijer is believed to own Fresh Thyme. The chain has been largely stagnant over the past several years, after predicting it could open dozens of stores each year… probably a bust. Gotta wonder how long before it merges with Sprouts.
I don't think Sprouts is in a position to buy anything. Of any possible outcome for Fresh Thyme, about the only thing worse than Sprouts taking them over would be outright closure of the chain.

Given this Fresh Thyme Foundry has Meijer items on the shelf, I think the secret is no longer a secret as to their involvement with Fresh Thyme...
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Re: Meijer entering St. Louis Metro

Post by Bakeragr »

Meijer has secured a second location in the St. Louis metro area, this one also on the Metro East Illinois side.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... 43d17d8591

I wonder how many locations they will plan to make a formal entry, and if they will secure any locations on the Missouri side? I assume this expansion is due to their favorable experience with the Fresh Thyme locations. Unfortunately, St. Louis is not exactly a growth market currently, but they did also expand to Cleveland in the last few years, and I think STL is growing faster than that metropolitan area.
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