My grandfather, a supermarket operator in New Jersey, knew the best customers in each of his stores. He would routinely engage them in the aisles, chatting about their lives, their families and their needs. If one liked to make her own pickles, he’d have a bag of Kirby cucumbers waiting for free. He wanted to make sure that they would never have a reason to shop anywhere else.
I’ve always thought that if a technology company could capture that essence, to be a merchant in every sense of the word, they would have something truly unique to offer food retailers. A genie in a retail bottle.
