Two Mobile-based grocery chains, both pressured by Wal-Mart, are taking disparate approaches to luring new customers.
The venerable Greer's chain has converted five of its stores to a Greer's Market format meant to appeal to more upscale shoppers. Meanwhile, the Manning family has converted its eight Manning's Marketplace stores into Food For Less, supermarkets that promise goods on a cost-plus-10-percent basis.
Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, has put all other area grocers under pressure in the last decade, rolling out 13 Supercenters and two Neighborhood Markets in southwest Alabama. The company, based in Bentonville, Ark., is currently building a Supercenter to replace an existing store in Brewton that doesn't offer groceries.
That relentless march has helped Wal-Mart grab half of all local grocery sales, a market that totals about $915 million in Mobile County and $3.1 billion in a larger region that includes Mobile, Baldwin County, Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and rural areas inland.
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