This regional grocer is investing millions to cut prices and retain customers

As grocery prices soar—inflation hit a two-year high in August—Giant Eagle is betting on slashed prices for essentials as a strategy to keep shoppers coming back.

The regional, family-owned grocery chain, which operates 200+ stores spanning Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana, late last month introduced its new “Because It Matters” strategy, encompassing improvements from price cuts to fresher produce and new shopping carts.

It’s been a “big year” for the nearly 100-year-old retailer, Justin Weinstein, EVP and chief merchandising and marketing officer at Giant Eagle, told Retail Brew. The chain, headquartered outside of Pittsburgh, sold its GetGo convenience store arm to Circle K-owner Alimentation Couche-Tard for $1.6 billion and took over filling prescriptions for closed Rite Aid locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio with its in-store pharmacies.

“Those two things really laid the groundwork for, ‘How do we create a plan for the investment back into our business?’” he said.

With its three-pronged strategy, the grocer is investing $100 million to provide value for price-conscious consumers, improving product quality and service, and upgrading its in-store shopping experience. The efforts, it hopes, will combat waning loyalty as it vies with larger players for a share of increasingly fickle consumers’ wallets.

Giant leap: Giant Eagle, like many regional grocers, has been facing rising grocery competition on its home turf from retailers like Walmart. In addition, Wegmans is set to open its first Pittsburgh-area store in 2027.

“We’re eyes wide open about the fact that our customers have a lot of choices, and people are looking to the discounters, they’re looking to the club stores,” he said. “This entire strategy is based on, ‘How do we give them more reason to put more in their basket and come to us?’”

The savings portion of the plan is divided into two efforts. The first was promotional, with a one-week $1 Deal initiative offering 1,000+ items in its stores for $1 in late September. The discounts included popular items like drinks, pasta, yogurt, and baby food. Additionally, the retailer is lowering prices across 300 staple items—with an average reduction of 17%, the company said—through the rest of the year to give customers “immediate relief from inflation.” These lowered prices span eggs ($2.99 for a dozen), Cheerios ($3.99 for 10.6 oz), and Land O Lakes butter (1 lb. for $4.99), along with products like honeycrisp apples, Idaho potatoes, Barilla pasta, Campbell’s Soup, and Oreo cookies. Several of those prices are competitive with pricing at Pittsburgh-area Walmart and Target locations, Retail Brew found.

While a rise in sales volume is a metric for success with this strategy, Weinstein said the effort is aimed at maintaining customer loyalty and attracting new customers.

“We want to be that destination through the holiday and we don’t want people to question week to week, ‘Can they get that value with Giant Eagle or not?’” Weinstein said.

While he said the grocer will continue to grow its private label assortment (and many private label items like canned beans, brown sugar, frozen vegetables, and shredded cheese are included in the lower-price effort), national brands continue to play an important role in stores. Weinstein said Giant Eagle worked “hand-in-hand” with them on these pricing and promotional shifts to prioritize what customers care about, particularly when it comes to value.

“If items ultimately are sitting at the end of that tail, we’d rather have more at a lower price of the items that customers want than the 100th item that doesn’t necessarily appeal to them,” Weinstein said, clarifying that cutting down large amounts of its assortment isn’t part of the strategy.

Full cart: Giant Eagle is investing not only in lower prices, but also upping product quality and the overall in-store experience based on both customer and team member feedback.

The grocer is training more in-store butchers, bakers, cake decorators, and cheesemongers, and increasing training to improve customer service skills. It’s also reviewing the supply chain for its most perishable produce categories (e.g. berries, grapes, tomatoes, and salads) to provide more fresh options for consumers and renovating a dozen locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio, improving decor, fixtures, food cases, and store layout, and growing its prepared food section. Plus it’s replacing its metal shopping carts—which tend to “creak and crack” as shoppers roll them through the store—with all-plastic ones.

“Retail is detail,” Weinstein said. “It’s how you pull all of those things together that makes us successful.”