Norcross to get first Latino-centric Publix

“Do you have the sombrero? Has it arrived yet?”

It’s not the kind of question a grocery store manager overseeing the final details of a renovation would normally expect from a contractor. But for Marco Guillen, it’s all in a day’s work.

Guillen is the point man on Publix Super Markets’ newest experiment —- the first store outside the company’s home turf in Florida designed to appeal to Hispanic shoppers.

The Norcross store, located in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood that Census records show is predominantly Mexican in origin, features bilingual signs and shelves stocked with more than 1,500 new Mexican and Central American items brought into the store in recent months.

Where Hispanic foods were once isolated in a single aisle, they’re now spread throughout the store. Dried guajillo chiles are piled in a box in the produce section. Jarritos soft drinks take up shelf space near Coke and Pepsi products. Foca power detergent is near the Tide. Colorful pinatas are scattered throughout.

“We really had to go out and challenge our suppliers to go out and get us items that are traditionally Mexican. Not Mexican-American, but Mexican,” said the company’s Atlanta spokeswoman, Brenda Reid.

The store also features a salsa bar, deli items meant to appeal to the Hispanic palate and an expanded number of Western Union terminals, popular with Hispanic immigrants sending money home. About half its employees are bilingual, recruited from Publix stores all over metro Atlanta, Reid said.

The store has been slowly rolling out the changes for months. It formally debuts today with a grand opening featuring a mariachi band and other festivities.

The effort is rooted in rising Hispanic buying power and increasing competition from ethnic groceries that cater to the fast-growing Hispanic and Asian communities, Reid said.

Hispanic buying power in Georgia has grown by 1,037 percent since 1990, outstripping the 194 percent growth for the overall market by more than five times, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.

Hispanics now account for 5.1 percent of Georgia’s buying power and are projected to outpace the growth by all other ethnic groups, according to the center.

A spokesman for Kroger, metro Atlanta’s leading grocer, said his company hasn’t explicitly labeled any one store to appeal to a specific demographic. But Glynn Jenkins said the company adjusts each store’s product mix to appeal to local tastes.

Guillen said the changes at his store have gone over well with both Hispanic and non-Hispanic customers. The store’s bright new color palette and the fact that the store only eliminated a handful of unpopular items to make way for its new Hispanic product mix continues to bring in customers of all stripes, he said.

But not everyone is happy. Some Gwinnett residents feel the bilingual signs are too much.

“I will not support any business that is trying to elevate Spanish to a level equal with English,” said Loretta Jakubowski of Lilburn. “I find it to be insulting to Hispanics and divisive to the community.”

But Ralph Hererra, who owns the Hispanic-oriented marketing company The Lanza Group, said Publix is likely to hit the target with its efforts.

The company has experience marketing to Cuban-Americans in its home state of Florida, and will likely hit the right tone to make its Norcross store appealing to metro Atlanta’s increasingly economically important Hispanic population, as well.

“I believe they will probably be able to pull it off,” he said. “They’re certainly in the right place.”