To Market: A food shopper’s dream - if you’re in the military

You’re probably aware that while our service men and women, including the National Guard, are in harms way on our behalf, they and their families frequently have a tough time making ends meet at home. As do those who are retired from the services. One of the benefits devised to help has been the system of commissaries that offers foodstuff and other essentials at discounted prices. Only the families of active and retired military, including the National Guard and reservists, can shop at these commissaries, so unless you’re part of this family it probably hasn’t been on your radar.

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In San Diego, we have the largest commissary in the world. The non-profit  Naval Base San Diego Commissary on 32nd St., near downtown, opened on April 20, 2007 to serve a customer base of 267,000. Today, the average number of transactions is 4,000 a day, with much more on paydays. More numbers? The building itself is more 127,000 square feet, with 75,000 of this making up the sales floor. The Commissary’s 18 aisles are wide, at least a third larger than conventional markets (but no more directional shopping arrows). There are more than 800 linear feet of frozen food. There are 29 cash registers. Think of it as a very large Costco in terms of size but focusing almost exclusively on food.

I first accompanied my friend Lisa Schmidt to The Commissary after she commented on Twitter about the amazing buys she found there. “Price is number one, with the extreme best deals being in milk and dairy, the meat department and spices,” she said. “These can be up to half off (and more when referring to spices) what I pay in civilian stores.”

In fact, store director William Vick said that a family of four could save over $3,000 a year shopping at the Commissary. All commissaries sell products at cost plus a five percent surcharge, which is used to build new stores and modernize existing ones.

Vick took me on a more formal tour of the Commissary following that trip. At the entrance of the Commissary is a massive produce section, almost 11,000 square feet in size. You’ll see the variety of everything you’d expect to find in a civilian supermarket in Southern California only in tremendous quantity. Plus, since the Commissary has a large Asian customer base as well as customers who have been based in Asia and enjoy Asian cuisine, there are displays of more exotic produce that you’d usually find in Asian markets, like taro root, long beans, and banana hearts. And, there are a considerable amount of Hispanic products to appeal to their many Hispanic shoppers or those who like Hispanic cuisine.

Also in the produce section is an interactive computer kiosk. Given the enormity of the store, the management decided to set up a screen that allows customers to place an order in the deli department (on the opposite end of the Commissary) so that it would be ready for pick up before they check out. About 5,000 orders monthly are placed through the kiosk.

Vick is also proud of the organics sections that he’s established in produce, dairy and packaged goods. However, he acknowledged that organic produce is limited because the shoppers here are naturally price conscious.

Without venturing too far, you’ll also enjoy cooking demonstrations at a booth in the produce section outfitted with a stove, sink and prep area. The morning I was visiting, chef Valerie Salatino was making an “Italian paella” using a variety of products sold at the store.

At the Seafood section I noticed something I haven’t seen in the markets I shop at—digital price labels. According to Vick there are about 5,000 of these throughout the store. The technology allows prices to be updated automatically, eliminating a lot of time spent manually switching out prices and enhancing the accuracy of price changes.
The Value Aisle is like a trip to a membership store. Some three truckloads of products are displayed, many of which are club packs. Nearby is an aisle filled with various ethnic foods from around the world. There are shelves upon shelves of packaged German foods. And, because of the large Asian customer base, there’s naturally a large selection of Asian products, ranging from Japanese and Chinese to Korean, Thai and Filipino.

At the far end of the Commissary is a large bakery and deli. There are full selections of meats and cheeses, rotisserie chicken, and breads and cakes. And, if you have a special occasion, like a wedding or big birthday, you can special order cakes from Red Ribbon, a local Filipino bakery that also provides less lofty baked goods for parties or other gatherings.

The 32nd St. Commissary is located at 2525 Callagan Highway, Building 3629. 619-556-8657 x3051. Again, it is limited to active and retired military.

Caron Golden writes the blog  San Diego Foodstuff.

Tags: 32nd Street, Caron Golden, commissary, food shopping, groceries, Naval base, SDNN

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Food . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.