The opening week at International Falls Super One Foods has been a great success, says Store Manager Joe Truman.
“We are just rocking it,” he said. “Everybody’s been happy… It’s just been an outstanding experience.”
The reason for the new store opening was largely a financial decision, Truman said.
Miners Inc, a privately held company that owns a chain of stores such as Super One Foods, Super One Liquor, Woodland Marketplace Foods, and Ace Hardware, formerly paid for rent and utilities of two leased buildings that ran International Falls Super One Foods and International Falls County Market Grocery & Liquor.
“Miners didn’t own neither of them,” Truman said. “Then with having two locations, they were pretty much paying to have everything, two rents to electric bills, two heating bills… it was just more cost efficient to have one store.”
“And it was also awesome that they wanted to build a store of a very high caliber that would last for decades upon decades,” Truman said.
Transitioning from the former locations to the new Super One Foods building went by quickly. Giving a rough estimate of the whole process, Truman said that once the new building was acquired, it took around six months of construction, and then around a month to stock the new store with inventory.
“They took items from my store and County Market to fill up the store. And now both stores are empty and all the products are here. And we’re just getting regular loads,” he said.
To restock the new store, Truman and his staff received help from various partners along with a crew from Miners.
“They actually have a crew that does this,” he said. “It’s about 10 people that work for Miners, and they do these remodels or these big moves for new stores. And then we also got assistance from a lot of the vendors that service us and from the warehouse as well.”
Up to the final days before the store’s new opening, the former International Falls Super One Foods location was still up and running, providing the community with their grocery needs.
The International Falls County Market Grocery & Liquor closed on Saturday, October 28, 2023, three days before the new Super One Foods opening, giving time for the crew to move all the inventory from the former store to the new one.
However, for Truman’s former store, it stayed open right until November 1, the day of the new grand opening.
“We didn’t want to leave the community without a grocery store,” Truman said. “While we were open, they emptied my store into this store. So there wasn’t a time where we didn’t have a grocery store.”
“It was very, very important to us that people were still able to get the groceries that they needed to feed their families and the caterer their special events. So we made a great effort to make sure that there was no lapse in service.”
Product control was one of the biggest challenges during the transition, a balance between ensuring that the new store did not have excess inventory while also avoiding shortages in order to continuously serve customers.
“We had to order just enough to stay in business, but not extra to create overstock so the backroom wasn’t filled with stuff we didn’t need,” Truman said.
Overcoming the challenge came down to Truman and his staffs’ expertise. They knew exactly which items sold more quickly than others and knew how much stock to order for each item.
November 1 was the store’s soft opening and a grand opening will take place on December 9, 2023, bringing in vendors that demo foods, giveaways, and fun activities for the community.
Truman said the plans are still in the works, and more information will soon be released.
Deer hunting season began last Saturday and the store’s sales have increased dramatically as customers flocked to buy deer hunting items in addition to the excitement surrounding the new store opening.
The new Super One Foods is located at 1606 Hwy 71 International Falls, MN 56649.
It has a bigger deli and meat department, offering a full service meat case where customers can ask for seafood and meats, freshly cut and wrapped before their eyes.
“Normally you would get your frozen seafood and fish, it would be frozen. Now it’s completely fresh where you don’t have to thaw,” Truman said. “It’s kind of like meat on-demand of what you want, when you want it.”
The dairy section now offers a freezer section that is twice as big as it was at other stores. Truman noted that they have around four aisles of freezer doors and a wider selection of product choices.
The bakery now has all-new appliances such as ovens and a cake decorating station on site.
Truman said that the community has been accepting and positive of the new changes.
“I’m very pleased that the community was so positive when they came into the store,” he said. “They’ve been treating us very well in the new store even with a few little hiccups.”
Looking back, Truman is overwhelmed with gratitude and feels most proud of his staff.
“Because it took everybody’s efforts, from my staff to upper management, to the reset crew—just everybody involved did a tremendous job to get the store the way it is,” he said. “My staff has really gone through a lot over the past few weeks. And they’re still rocking it right now, even though we’re very, very tired.”
