A Smart & Final addition

Smart & Final is hoping its low-cost model will be a hit as it ventures further into the region’s grocery market.

The retailer, which has historically focused on economy-sized packaged items for parties and businesses, opened one of its new Smart & Final Extra! stores in Glendale in October.

The store includes a produce section and other grocery offerings, like a deli, frozen foods and fresh meats.

The company also closed its Burbank store Friday for major remodeling and will reopen it in the first quarter of 2010 with a larger emphasis on grocery items, said Randall Oliver, spokesman for the retailer.

Smart & Final will offer more items in smaller sizes traditionally found in supermarkets or other outlets, hoping to make its stores increasingly convenient options for shoppers keen on making discounted purchases, Oliver said.

“Smart & Final has a real value proposition,” he said. “So you’re going to save a lot of money by shopping at a Smart & Final, even if you’re buying the smaller items.”

Although the 15,000-square-foot Burbank store will not be transformed into an Extra! store, it will have some of the dry grocery goods that will be available at the new 30,000-square-foot site on Glenoaks Boulevard in Glendale.

Smart & Final opened that store after closing its previous Glendale branch on San Fernando Road.

The new Extra! store, near the Burbank border, will serve shoppers in both cities who are looking for a discount grocery option, Oliver said.

“What that store allows you to do is really do all of your weekly grocery shopping in one place, but it still has the larger-sized items as well, and the business-oriented items,” he said.

Smart & Final’s low-cost grocery items will likely be attractive to shoppers during the recession, said Dave Heylen, spokesman for the California Grocers Assn.

“I think it reflects just kind of how the economy is going right now,” Heylen said. “Consumers are just very cost-conscious right now and I think this kind of fits that.”

More stores offering grocery items could redirect loyal shoppers of other stores, but Heylen predicted the changes would not significantly affect competitors.

“It’s competitive, but there is room for competition,” Heylen said of the grocery industry.

Smart & Final’s expanded grocery offerings will add another option for consumers in the Glendale-Burbank area after Target announced plans to build on the success of its new produce and grocery sections in Burbank by adding the same amenities at its Glendale store next year.

Henry’s Farmer’s Market, also owned by Smart & Final, opened its first Los Angeles-area store in Burbank this year, and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market plans to launch a store at a Burbank site in 2010.

The high level of grocery activity in Glendale and Burbank, however, did not deter Smart & Final from its plans to develop two new stores and undertake a major renovation, Oliver said.

“The people that would shop at any one of those stores might shop at the others as well, but also might be very loyal to one of those concepts, and we think that all of those formats are very competitive with anybody else that’s out there in our marketplace,” he said.