Pete Marczyk, founder of two-store, Denver-based Marczyk Fine Foods, shared with Winter Fancy Food Show attendees, Monday, how he curates the shelves of his upscale market.
“I love The New York Times’ cooking section and I go through the ingredient lists of recipes because I want to be sure that if you get that paper or some other publication, that we’ll be able to fill your basket with the ingredients you need,” he said.
Marczyk is also interested in delighting shoppers with his product selection.
“For the people in this room I’d want everyone to walk into the store and say ‘wow, I wonder how they did that.’ I’d want people in the business to think ‘they’re clever, they’re thoughtful.’ I want our customers to say ‘I saw this when I was in London’ or ‘I remember this product from when I lived in Boston as a kid.’”
Private label is also an area of focus. Marczyk said there are about 20 co-packed store-brand SKUs that are its best movers. It recently introduced a marinara sauce made by Terlato using Marczyk’s recipe which is selling 3 times as fast as the overall category.
When deciding whether to source individual items, Marczyk and his buyers consider quality and ask themselves “’Is it excellent? Is it cool and does it have a nice package? Does it have a story,’” he said. “If we like the product, we want to find the most efficient pack size. We do a lot of smaller packages and want to make sure we hit certain price points.”
Related: Market Hall Foods' Robinson Discusses How She Buys; Fancy Food Show Preview: How I Buy With Pete Marczyk.