Twelfth Freya health food store with new concept

The health food chain Freya opened its twelfth branch on 8 June 2009 in Frankfurt (Eschersheimer Landstr. 248). Following Neuform’s new concept, the store with 160 m² of retail space was planned by Wieselhuber & Partner and fitted out by the company Assman. It served as a model for a group of 48 operators of health food stores who came from all over Germany to get a first-hand impression of the new design concept. Although there were some mixed reactions, the majority of the visitors were positive.
Health, enjoyment and beauty are the new guiding principles that Neuform is employing to attract more customers into health food stores. Each principle is linked to a large-scale picture displayed above the shelves that is intended to fix the concepts in people’s memory and thus make the new orientation of health food stores clearer to customers. Running along the wall to the left and right of the pictures above the shelves is a band of dark brown stripes. The fittings and shelving are in a dark brown oak look made from laminated chipboard to create a high quality effect.

“Our aim was not to use much colour so that the goods themselves can be seen to full advantage,” comments Roland Fiedler (picture on right), the owner of the health food chain. Fiedler himself took part in the three groups that were set up by Neuform to work together with the business consultants Wieselhuber & Partner. The five target groups for the health food chain are (according to Dr. Renz): people with medical indications like allergy sufferers, young families, health consumers, people seeking to enjoy life to the full and the generation over 50, that coincides partly with Lohas.

“We developed a module system (see graphic on left) that can be transferred to many health food stores,” is how Timo Renz explains the concept developed by the Munich management consultants. Each of the three areas is linked to one of the three principles. For example, above the shampoos is the word “Beauty”, above the food supplements is “Health” and above the mueslis is “Enjoyment”. Since Renz’s concept means that the food department should measure 60 m², over every shelf with food items you see the word “Enjoyment”. Beauty accounts for 16 - 25 % of turnover in most health food stores. Here the “Beauty” area is in light green and measures 45 m², which makes it the same size as the food supplements area. The recommended 3,500 articles occupy 350 metres of shelf covering an area of 150 m². Of the 3,500 articles, less than a half (1,500) belong to the core range. The breakdown is 750 food articles, 450 in the case of cosmetics/body care and 300 articles in the case of food supplements/natural remedies.

There is no place for fruit and vegetables in this 150 m² concept, but there is certainly space for bread and bakery goods. For this reason Neuform welcomed the cooperation between Reformhaus Freya and Kaiser’s wholefood bakery in Wiesbaden, that has implemented a shop-in-shop concept (20 m²) in the new store in Eschersheimer Landstraße (picture on right). Neuform board member Erwin Perlinger says that Neuform continuously monitors the sales of 200 health food stores so that retailers can see which are doing well and which are slipping behind, and he adds that the number of health food stores will shortly be increased to 400.

The new health food store concept was developed in three working groups in coordination with the management consultants Wieselhuber. The three working groups, each with ten to fifteen members, addressed range/quality, marketing campaigns and pilot projects. The membership of the working groups was as follows: a third came from the big chains like Vitalia, Bacher and the marketing associations like Vita Nova. Another third were representatives of the bigger health food stores and the final third were from the 16 representatives elected in each federal state. Mr Perlinger welcomes this approach and called it “precisely the right start”. He also said that much had been achieved in recent months regarding collaboration with the manufacturers and a way forward had been agreed. The partner manufacturers had come to appreciate the value of the health food retail trade. Nevertheless Mr Perlinger is assuming that “loosening the structures” will continue. (Picture on left: Erwin Perlinger and Timo Renz)


He went on to say that they were currently working on creating 16 more stores with a total of 3,250 m² that should be open by 2010. New stores (each with 150 m²) will open in Weiterstadt and Neuenkirchen in September 2009. In the next one and a half to two years the figure will be between 100 and 150.

In answer to the question whether he carried out advertising to introduce the new store Mr Fiedler points out that they have only just opened. So he is very happy with the 200 customers he gets each day. “People will gradually discover that we are here,” he says confidently. Moreover, from July the new store will benefit from the joint flyer that Fiedler and four other companies with 40 branches are bringing out. 80,000 flyers will be delivered by post to households in Frankfurt.

“After inspecting the shop we had an in-depth discussion,” comments Mr Fiedler. He says they argued for and against the colour scheme and other issues. The operator of another health food store found the labels on the shelves much too small and in his view the whole concept was not bold enough. Nevertheless the majority were in agreement that this was an allround package that, as Mr Fiedler put it, should be grasped without hesitation.

Eight of the 12 Freya health food stores are in Frankfurt where the company was founded in 1910. There is also one store in Bad Soden/Taunus, one in Bad Kreuznach and two in Wiesbaden, the capital of the federal state Hessen. Annes Natur-Gourmet in Wiesbaden, a subsidiary company founded by Mr Fiedler’s mother in 1985, supplies vegetarian fine foods for the fresh food counters in the Freya health food stores, two small bistros and take-aways in Freya stores. Its main activity is, however, a vegetarian party service run by his mother Irmtraut Arslanoglu. She supplies food for about 150 events a year – weddings and birthday celebrations, company parties and anniversaries.

An attractively designed website keeps Freya customers up-to-date on product developments and the old favourites in the product range. The company will continue to expand at the beginning of next year when the thirteenth store, in the same new look, will be launched.

It can be concluded that Neuform has taken a step in the right direction with the concept developed by Wieselhuber & Partner. Even if you think a grand scheme with lots of clever ideas has eluded them, it is for the majority of smaller and medium health food stores a chance to make use of the modules in an existing shop design concept and thus to save their own development costs.

For Neuform it is the opportunity to present itself to customers, at least in part in a uniform style, once the concept has been underway for a few years. It is of little interest to the professionals in the big chains and the large-scale health food stores whose orientation is the organic supermarkets. These are much more likely to develop their own concepts in the future for the simple reason that they want to stand out from other health food stores.

(Picture on left: Fruit and vegetables are not automatically a part of the Wieselhuber concept of a 150 m² health food store but are more likely if it is bigger than 200 m². However, individual operators of health food stores are free to include them in their product range if they wish)

Tip:
www.reformhaus-freya.de