Supervalu-Owned Cub Foods Chain Parades its Lumberjack-Size Shopping Cart Down the Streets of Stillwater, Minnesota Today

The giant shopping cart in today's Lumberjack Days' parade.

The Sunday Supplement: Grocers Need to Go Big or Go Home When in the River City of Stillwater, Minnesota

Giant grocery shopping carts as promotional "vehicles" for grocery chains might just be the new black.

For example, we wrote about Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supemarkets' giant "Hot Rod" shopping cart in this June 28, 2011 story: Gentlemen ... Start Your Grocery Cart: Save Mart Supermarkets Goes 'Big' With 12-Foot High Motorized Shopping Cart. [Also see this related story - June 29, 2011: Save Mart Supermarkets Signs On For Five More Years' of NASCAR Sponsorship.]

The 12-foot-high Save Mart shopping cart (pictured here), which is nicknamed "Big Red" and called "Piccinini's Pride" by some Save Mart insiders (Bob Piccinini is the majority-owner, chairman and CEO of the 240-store supermarket chain) is powered by a 454 cubic inch Chevy racing engine. It can hold three grown men inside the basket, with enough room leftover for a few kids and  numerous bags of groceries.

Save Mart's "Hot Rod" cart has been making the rounds to various events in Northern California this summer (see the stories linked above), a well as stopping off at a few of the grocer's Save Mart and Lucky banner stores in the region.

The giant shopping cart's next major appearance is in August, when it will take center stage at the popular Hot August Nights celebration in Reno, Nevada, where Save Mart operates stores in addition to Northern California and California's Central Valley.

Cub Foods' 'Lumberjack-size' shopping card a parade hit

Today in Stillwater, Minnesota, thousands of miles from Modesto, California were Save Mart Supermarkets' is headquartered, Cub Foods, a local chain owned and operated by Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu, Inc. unveiled its own giant grocery shopping cart - racing motor not included - at the annual Lumberjack Days Grand Parade in Stillwater, which is located on the St. Croix River.

Supervalu, Inc.-owned Cub Foods operates 69 supermarkets in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. Of those units 58 stores are in Minnesota's Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The small River City of Stillwater, which has 18,000 residents, is located 20 miles east of downtown St. Paul.

The Cub Foods' giant shopping cart is actually a parade float, as you can see in the photograph at the top of this piece.

The cart is motorized. But unlike the 454 Chevy engine on Save Mart's "Hot Rod" cart, which CEO Bob Piccinini told us in June allows it to hit upwards of 100 miles-an-hour (if anyone is crazy enough to attempt it), the Supervalu-owned chain's version instead has a tiny motor that moves the float/cart along at a standard parade speed or pace.

Notice the over-sized food and grocery product packages in Cub Foods' giant shopping cart pictured at top? A Supervalu, Inc. spokesperson says the big cart plus the big grocery product packages featured inside it "equals big savings," which at least is the message the grocery chain says it wanted to get across in today's parade, along with having a little fun.

We do know the fun part was experienced because according to a group of parade spectators we talked to today, the giant shopping cart appeared to receive a good deal of attention and created lots of smiles among parade-goers, the viewers told us.

The annual Lumberjack Days Grand Parade is part of an event-packed five day festival in Stillwater, Minnesota called Lumberjack Days. You can see just how event and activity-packed the annual celebration of the city's heritage is by taking a look at its website here.

A number of residents of Stillwater and the surrounding area were concerned that the fast-rising St. Croix River might interfere with this year's Lumberjack Days celebration and parade, particularly after the city had five inches of rain on Friday, July 19.

But event organizer Dave Eckberg says there was no way he and his team were going to allow heavy rains and a rising river to stop the popular annual celebration of the city's heritage, which has as its title sponsor this year Supervalu, Inc. competitor Walmart Stores, Inc.

A little irony: Supervalu, Inc. is headquartered in nearby Eden Prairie, Minnesota. It's not only the dominant grocer in the state but also one of the top employers in Minnesota. It's the home state grocery chain. 

It's CEO, Craig Herkert, was a senior executive at Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart Stores, Inc. before taking the top spot at Supervalu, which owns Cub Foods and other chains like Albertsons, Save-A-Lot, Shaw's and numerous others.

One of the key states Walmart's U.S. division is putting a major focus on in terms of growing its food and grocery retailing presence nationally is Minnesota, which is the major reason it's the top-sponsor of Lumerjack Days this year. Walmart is the market share leading seller of groceries in the U.S. Supervalue, Inc. is neck-to-neck with Safeway for the number four slot. Kroger is number two. Costco is number three.

On Friday July 19th Lumberjack Days' organizer Eckberg said, "We're not compromising the event in any way. We're actually really excited about the possibilities [presented by the rising river]. The concert venue is moving west, away from the the river about 200 feet. We're clearing three parking lots and closing off most of Water Street. We'll still be right downtown, East of main Street and all events remain on schedule."

That's a spirit the town's original Lumberjacks would be proud to know still exists in Stillwater.

And we bet Supervalu's Cub Foods' chain would like to see some of that "can do" spirit in its stores, with locals filling regular-sized shopping carts to the brim, having been inspired by viewing the Supervalu-owned chain's Giant shopping cart float in today's Lumberjack Days parade.

Save Mart Supermarkets Signs On For Five More Years' of NASCAR Sponsorship

Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.

Northern California Market Region

Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets has signed a multi-year agreement to continue as co-title sponsor of the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Infineon Raceway in Northern California's Sonoma Valley.

The announcement was made Sunday (June 26) by Save Mart majority-owner, chairman and CEO Bob Piccinini and Steve Page, president and general manager of Infineon Raceway, during the Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR race, which was won by

The 240-store supermarket chain, which is number two in market share in Northern California after number one Safeway Stores, In., and Infineon Raceway have a long partnership together: Save Mart has been either title sponsor or co-title sponsor of the NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Infineon Raceway since 1992.

Additionally, Save Mart has been either the title or co-title partner of the NASCAR annual Cup event - this year's Toyota/Save Mart 350 held Sunday -  in Sonoma for two decades, celebrating its 20th anniversary as a sponsor of NASCAR in Sonoma this year.

According to Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini, Save Mart was the title sponsor of the NASCAR Cup event from 1992-1997. It has combined with partners as co-title sponsor of the event since 1998. The last five years, the event has been known as the Toyota/Save Mart 350.

Piccinini says the new agreement with the Sonoma County raceway announced Sunday is for five years, extending through 2016.

"We are excited to continue our partnership with Infineon Raceway as co-title sponsor of the Cup Series event and look forward to finding new ways to celebrate with racing fans across every community we serve," Piccinini, who's a rabid auto racing and sports fan - he's also a minority owner of the Golden State Warriors professional basketball team and the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres pro- baseball teams - says. "Our sponsorship continues to build strong brand recognition and provide great value to our loyal supplier partners and shoppers. It's been a great ride so far and we are ready for more."

One of the ways Piccinini and Save Mart found to celebrate Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Cup Series event, along with promoting the chain at he same time, was by featuring the grocer's 12-foot high "hot rod" shopping cart, which we wrote about in the story below on the blog. [See - June 28, 2011: Gentlemen ... Start Your Grocery Cart: Save Mart Supermarkets Goes 'Big' With 12-Foot High Motorized Shopping Cart.]

Save Mart's Lucky supermarket chain, which has 76 stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California, is the official grocery chain of the Golden State Warrior's for promotional purposes.

Earlier this year Piccinini, who invested in the team (an about 20% ownership stake, according to our sources) last fall as part of a new ownership group that bought out the team's previous owners for $450 million, was named a member of the Warrior's four-person executive board, which is headed by majority owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber. Read the October 27, 2010 column by our 'The Insider' about the new owners and Piccinini's involvement here: Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini Poised to Make it to the 'Bigs' as Member of Golden State Warriors' Ownership Group.

But back at the races, Steve Page, who runs Infineon Raceway in Sonoma Valley said in announcing th new five year deal with Save Mart Supermarkets he inked with Piccinini: "Our relationship with Save Mart continues to evolve in new and positive ways." They are an engaged, active and promotionally-oriented partner and the synergy between our respective organizations has only grown stronger over these 20-years. We couldn't be more delighted to announce this new agreement and extension."

Infineon Raceway is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which is a major marketer and promoter of motor-sports entertainment in the United States.

The new five year deal in which Save Mart will continue to sponsor the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Infineon Raceway, also means the grocery chain's 12-foot high motorized shopping cart, which is powered by a 454 cubic inch Chevy engine, will be getting a lot more use. And that's an added reason Save Mart should look into the world record-holding potential its giant shopping cart holds, as described in our story yesterday.

Related Stories

June 28, 2011: Gentlemen ... Start Your Grocery Cart: Save Mart Supermarkets Goes 'Big' With 12-Foot High Motorized Shopping Cart

June 19, 2011: Safeway Has A Picnic in San Francisco Featuring the 'World's Longest Picnic Table' to Showcase its 'Open Nature' Natural Foods' Brand

March 23, 2011: Tesco Opens First Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in California's Northern Central Valley Today - in Modesto

March 19, 2011: Preview: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Headed to Save Mart Supermarket's Hometown of Modesto

October 27, 2010: Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini Poised to Make it to the 'Bigs' as Member of Golden State Warriors' Ownership Group

July 15, 2010: Just Like Mr. Rogers Did, Save Mart Supermarkets' Doesn't Just Talk the Talk, it Walks the Walk in the Neighborhood

Gentlemen ... Start Your Grocery Cart: Save Mart Supermarkets Goes 'Big' With 12-Foot High Motorized Shopping Cart

Touring the track on Sunday at the Toyota/Save Mart 350.

Northern California Market Region

Northern California's two leading supermarket chains - Pleasanton, California-based Safeway Stores, Inc. and Save Mart Supermarkets, which is headquartered in Modesto - have been thinking and doing "big" this month.

But the big thinking and doing has nothing to do about the fact the grocery chains are the number one - Safeway - and number two - Save Mart - market share leaders in Northern California.

Safeway Store's big thinking and doing was on display in San Francisco on Sunday, June 17, when the grocery chain broke the Guinness World's Record for creating the longest picnic table. We wrote about the "big" (or long) event in this June 19 story: Safeway Has A Picnic in San Francisco Featuring the 'World's Longest Picnic Table' to Showcase its 'Open Nature' Natural Foods' Brand


Kyle Bush and the giant Shopping cart in the winner's circle after Sunday's race.


12-foot high 'hot rod' shopping cart

Not to be outdone by its competition when it comes to "big" thinking and doing, earlier this year Modesto-based Save Mart hired a local company, BRE Rods & Classics, located in nearby Salida, California, to create the 12-foot high, "hot rod" shopping cart (pictured at top).

The cart, which some insiders are calling "Piccinini's Pride," in honor of Save Mart majority-owner, chairman, CEO and rabid auto racing fan Bob Piccinini, who commissioned the mean machine, was featured on Sunday at the NASCAR Toyota/Save Mart 350 auto race at Infineon Raceway in Northern California's Sonoma County.

Sunday's race, sponsored annually by Toyota and Save Mart Supermarkets, was won by Kurt Bush, who held off a late-charging Jeff Gordon to claim the first-place honor.

Save Mart's mega-motorized shopping cart, which is powered by a 454 Chevy engine sponsored by Watson Racing, which allows it to hit speeds of up to 100 miles an hour, according to Jim Brown of BRE Rods & Classics, got its inaugural debut in Modesto's annual "Graffiti Fest" parade on Friday evening, June 11. (You can see the Save Mart motorized shopping cart on a test run in the brief video below.)

The three day "Graffiti Fest" event, which is sponsored by the Modesto Kiwanis Club each year, pays homage to the movie "American Graffiti," which was made by Modesto native George Lucas of Star Wars fame, and chronicles the born-and-raised in Modesto movie producer-director's childhood, growing up in what the locals like to call the "Cruising Capital of the World."

Or at least Modesto was America's cruising capital. However, a number of years ago the Modesto City Council outlawed cruising on McHenry Avenue and J Street, the main drag where most of the action took place in Lucas' era (late 1950's-to-early 1960's) and in his movie, which is set in the early 1960's. As the famous line in American Graffiti says: "Where were you in '62?

Local boosters created the annual "Graffiti Fest" event, along with a series of other events throughout the summer, called "Graffiti Summer," as a way to celebrate the tradition, along with using it as a vehicle to increase tourism and encourage people to spent money with local businesses during the summer months.

Save Mart's big, hot rod shopping cart got a bit over-heated during its trial run in the June 11 "Graffiti Fest" parade, according to a longtime Modesto-area food broker and Fresh & Easy Buzz reader who was there, and had to be sidelined. A Save Mart executive confirmed that observation for us recently.

However, the crew at BRE Rods and Classics fixed the problem and "Piccinini's Pride" was in top shape at Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 race in Sonoma County.

Sunday's big race isn't the last stop for the shopping cart. Save Mart's pit crew is taking the racing engine-powered vehicle to the California State Fair in Sacramento next.

After that the cart, which also made an appearance at one of Save Mart's Lucky banner supermarkets in Napa, California on June 23, will be featured at the annual "Hot August Nights" event in Reno, Nevada. Save Mart, like Safeway Stores, Inc., operates supermarkets in northern Nevada, as well as in Northern California.

The Save Mart "hot rod" shopping cart at the Crystal Springs Gold Course in Burlingame, California. The club's pro says course rules prohibit the shopping cart's use as a golf cart, even though it can hold a whole lot of golf bags. But he did let a photographer use the fairway to take a few "shots."

An American tradition

Creating "out-sized" things and events - giant displays in-store, parade floats, and even record-holding tables and giant shopping carts - is part of a long and historic tradition of thinking and doing "big" by U.S. grocers, as a way to not only promote their stores, but also to have plain fun.

It's good to see that Save Mart and Safeway Stores' are keeping that tradition alive - and are doing so in a "big" way.

Potential Guiness World Record?

Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets, which was founded over five decads ago by Bob Piccinini's father Mike and partner Nick Tocco, operates 240 stores in Northern and Central California and Northern Nevada under the Save Mart, S-Mart Foods, Lucky, Maxx Value (supermarkets) and FoodMaxx (discount warehouse format) banners, should contact the Guinness World Record people post-haste because a Guiness World Record might just be looking the grocer right in its eyes, so to speak.

Save Mart can't get the record for biggest/largest/tallest shopping cart. That record is already held - and at 34.4 feet high, from ground to handle, the world record-holding cart, which was made by the Al Safeer Group and Century Shopping Mall, and sponsored by Dubai UAE Duty Free, won the honors in February 2004 at the Dubai UAE Shopping Festival

But ... the record-holding shopping cart from Dubai has no motor.

Enter Save Mart's 12-foot high "muscle car-style" shopping cart, powered by the 454 Chevy engine.

Based on our research on the Guinness website, we think there just might be an opportunity for Save Mart to claim the title and honor of having the world's biggest, largest or highest (or all three) motorized shopping cart.

It's certainly worth checking out. After all, does Save Mart Supermarkets' (and its chief Bob Piccinini) really want to let Safeway Stores' have all the glory with its World's Longest Picnic Table, when it comes to Northern California-based grocery chains setting world records?

The grocery business is all about competition, right? So ... Bring it on.

Related Stories

June 19, 2011: Safeway Has A Picnic in San Francisco Featuring the 'World's Longest Picnic Table' to Showcase its 'Open Nature' Natural Foods' Brand

March 23, 2011: Tesco Opens First Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in California's Northern Central Valley Today - in Modesto

March 19, 2011: Preview: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is Headed to Save Mart Supermarket's Hometown of Modesto

October 27, 2010: Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini Poised to Make it to the 'Bigs' as Member of Golden State Warriors' Ownership Group

July 15, 2010: Just Like Mr. Rogers Did, Save Mart Supermarkets' Doesn't Just Talk the Talk, it Walks the Walk in the Neighborhood

Save Mart CEO Bob Piccinini Poised to Make it to the 'Bigs' as Member of Golden State Warriors' Ownership Group

The Insider - Heard on the Street

Bob Piccinini (at left), the majority-owner, chairman and CEO of Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets, has achieved far more than he likely imagined he would growing up as the son of an independent grocer in Modesto, where he was born and raised and returned to after doing a stint in the military and graduating from the University of San Francisco.

For example, when Piccinini took over as CEO of Save Mart in the 1980's, there were about 40 stores, all located in Modesto and in a few surrounding cities. Today, under his leadership, Save Mart, which operates 240 stores under the Save Mart, Lucky, S Mart and Food Maxx banners, is the largest privately-held grocery chain in California and in the top 10 nationally, with annual sales in the $5 billion range.

And Lucky, which Save Mart acquired a few years ago (former Albertson's Northern California) is the number two market share leader in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, behind number one Safeway Stores. Apparently Piccinini paid attention to the region all those many decades ago while he was attending the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco.

Along with selling groceries and building a business, Piccinini's other vocation and advocation has been sports. In his lifetime he's owned two minor league baseball teams: What in the 1980's and 90's was the then Oakland A's-affiliated Modesto A's (it's now the Modesto Nuts and not affiliated with the A's) and after that for a time the San Francisco Giants' Fresno, California-based minor league team. It's been a number of years since he has owned either team.

Bob Piccinini has also lead Save Mart into numerous sport-oriented sponsorships. For example, some years ago he put together a group of vendor-investors, including Pepsi, that along with the grocery chain provided much of the money to build the "Save Mart Center" on the Fresno State University campus. The combination indoor sports arena (college basketball, ect.) and entertainment venue was named after the grocery chain in return for Piccinini and company's financing a significant portion of the cost of the multi-million dollar facility.

For many years Save Mart also sponsored the California Relays in Modesto, which before they were ended a few years ago was one of the oldest and most prestigious Olympic-qualifying track and field events in the U.S.

In the 1990's, Piccinini and entertainment industry executive Peter Guber, who's now CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, along with a few other investors, made a deal to buy the Oakland A's, a deal that would have put Piccinini in the "Bigs."

Guber has said publicly it was a done deal, saying he and Piccinini bought the A's and signed the deal with the team's then owners, including offering A's baseball guru Billy Beane the position of general manager with an equity piece, which he accepted.

The investment partners had the plug pulled out from their deal though at the last minute, when Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig came up with an idea to merge the A's and the Minnesota twins, something the didn't end up happening.

Guber, who is said to love sports and entertainment in the same way Piccinini loves selling groceries and sports, went on to create Mandalay Baseball Properties, which now owns seven minor-league baseball teams. The most recent acquisition, the Oklahoma City RedHawks, the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, came last month.

The Mandalay Entertainment Group CEO is using Mandalay Baseball Properties as the base for what he hopes will be a mega-synergistic entertainment-sports empire. It makes sense: What's more logical from a business perspective than entertainment and sports, after all. And adding supermarkets, particularly a chain with numerous stores in just the right markets, could add considerably to that synergy.

Last July, Guber and Joe Lacob, a partner at the noted Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, made the winning bid to buy the Golden State Warriors basketball team, agreeing to pay owner Chris Cohan $450 million for the Warriors, which is the only professional basketball team in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to nearly seven million people.

The $450 million is the highest price paid for an NBA team in the league's history.

The investment partners snatched the Warriors away from a very heavy hitter and deal maker, Larry Ellison, the multi-billionaire founder, chairman and CEO of Oracle, who was neck-to-neck with the partners until the very final leg of negotiations with Warriors owner Cohan. The arena in Oakland where the Warriors play their home games is sponsored by and named after Oracle.

Approval of the deal by the NBA has sat on the shelf since then.

However, on Friday, October 22 NBA Commissioner David Stern told Comcast SportsNet Bay Area that winning bidders Joe Lacob and Peter Guber would own the Warriors within a week. Stern, who has a track record of following through on his words, said there's a "signed contract," and that the "deal will close" by the end of this week.

On Tuesday, October 19, I "tweeted" the following missive on Fresh & Easy's Buzz's twitter feed: "From #LasVegas #1: #Savemart Supermarkets owner #Bob Piccinini appears set to join the ownership group buying the #GoldenStateWarriors. 5:06 PM Oct 19th via web ."

There have been rumors for a number of weeks that Save Mart owner and CEO Bob Piccinini was considering joining Guber and Lacob as an owner of the Warriors once the NBA approved of the sale.

However, they've mostly been rumors. And I didn't know what to make of them.

But my source, the person who told me Piccinini is in, and told me so just four days before NBA Commissioner Stern announced the sale would be final by the end of this week, is a very good one. If not, I wouldn't have put the information out in a tweet.

I'm told Piccinini will be one of two and maybe three other key investors who will join Guber and Lacob in comprising the Warriors ownership group. Lacob and Guber will remain the majority owners. My source claims it's a "Slam-Dunk." We'll see.

Another reason Piccinini's becoming one of the owners of the Warriors looks to be a "Slam-Dunk": Save Mart Supermarkets recently launched a promotional sweepstakes, featuring its various private brands, in all its Northern California stores. The promotion is called: "Slam-Dunk With Our Brands." The grand prize: A "Basketball in the Bay Package," featuring the Golden State Warriors. See here.

As I mentioned earlier, Save Mart, with its numerous Lucky banner stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and Save Mart banner stores elsewhere nearby in Northern California, adds the retail outlet synergistic element to the entertainment-sports empire Guber is attempting to build.

And, as you can already see by the promotion Save Mart is running in partnership with the Warriors, Piccinini's ownership, which would be his personally not Save Mart's corporately, gives Save Mart a professional sports team in which to cross-promote with. Of course, for Piccinini personally, it gets him, as well as Guber, into the "Bigs," particularly after the two had the plug pulled on their ownership of the Oakland A's years' ago.

With Guber's flair and entertainment industry expertise, combined with having 200-plus Save Mart, Lucky and other banner retail supermarket outlets available to cross-promote with, the Warriors have nowhere to go but up in terms of attendance and success. The team already has strong attendance in NBA terms -more than 18,000 fans per game for five straight years, including last year, despite the Warriors' pathetic 26-56 season. Imagine if they become a contender. And imagine when Guber adds the entertainment flair to the team that he's famous for.

We should know if Bob Piccinini has made it to the "Bigs" by the end of this week.