Pop Up Grocer puts down permanent roots in NYC

Pop Up Grocer, a specialty grocer that built its reputation by opening short-term pop-up stores across the U.S., is now establishing a permanent retail residence with a New York City flagship. The grocer announced the opening of its permanent Manhattan storefront on Bleecker Street earlier this month, Time Out reported. The store will carry an assortment of 130 “emerging” better-for-you products and will rotate its selection quarterly (except for store favorites). The store also features an on-site cafe, which will have a rotating assortment of baked goods from small vendors and host food-related events and classes. Founder Emily Schildt launched Pop Up Grocer in 2019 when she had an epiphany about the difficulties small consumer packaged goods brands face getting on the shelf at big retailers, according to Thrillist. As a result, the grocer stocks exclusively small brands. Beginning in late 2020, Pop Up Grocer began opening seasonal pop-ups in major U.S. cities, first in Brooklyn, then Chicago (Spring 2021), Miami (Winter 2021), Washington, D.C. (Spring 2022) and Denver (Fall 2022). Around the time Ms. Schildt started the store, getting visibility in national retailers was becoming more challenging for small CPGs. Whole Foods, for example, centralized its buying function, removing a once-promising chance for small, local brands to get on the shelves of individual stores. Pop Up Grocer’s website features a list of more than 600 brands that sell through the retailer and lists their availability in a given store location/pop-up. Better-for-you snacks took the CPG world by storm in the years leading up to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Consumer tastes turned away from conventional potato chips, candy and sodas and toward products made with fewer, healthier and less processed ingredients. By 2017, the trend had grown prevalent enough to lead major CPGs such as Hershey and Campbell to add several better-for-you brands to their portfolios. Pop-up retail, in general, experienced surges in popularity at points during the pandemic, with retailers seeing them as a way to get nervous shoppers back into stores during periods of reopening. Landlords also became more open to short-term leases.

• This new 'experience-first' store in Manhattan promises to make grocery shopping fun – Time Out

• Revolutionize the Way We Shop – Thrillist

• Are pop-ups ready to become a permanent fixture in retail? – RetailWire

• Directory – Pop Up Grocer

• Hershey and Campbell splurge big on better-for-you acquisitions – RetailWire

• Locations – Pop Up Grocer