Meijer, a pioneer in the combined grocery and department store concept, opened their first superstore in 1962 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Today they have more than 200 locations located throughout the Midwest. Their stores average up to 250,000 square feet. Meijer, a family owned business, has consistently led the industry by being recognized as leaders in understanding and offering high quality foods and produce.
In 2014, Meijer began construction on a new Meijer’s Purple Cow Creamery in southwest Ohio. This 105,000 square foot dairy production and refrigerated warehouse was built near the 1.7 million square foot Meijer Distribution Center to optimize delivery to stores located throughout the Midwest.
The Meijer’s Purple Cow Creamery faced the difficult challenge of launching live culture products using specialized processes. To do so they needed to create over 30 SKU’s (stockkeeping unit) in an extremely short time frame. Meijer reached out to CIFT for expertise to scale up and develop the production operating procedures and quality control requirements for launching new products in nine months.
Partnering with CIFT/Ohio MEP helped meet tight deadlines and created over 30 new SKU’s.
The experienced CIFT team quickly began to address equipment capabilities and set realistic launch dates for the new products. Working tirelessly, the team began product startups within just three months, and continued to launching new products in just nine months.
When the project completed the economic impact was substantial. Meijer had increased/retained sales of more than $3.8 million as well as new investments exceeding $4 million. The Meijer/CIFT partnership also resulted in savings of more than $12,000 and five new jobs.
