CLOSE U P
Shopping Center President Jim Hiller goes over some paperwork with a company manager, Victor lagnemma.
supermarket industry
began," he said. "Today
that has dwindled. The big
business is corporate. It is
not too ethnic."
Mr. Litwak said the
grocery business grew with
the rest of the corporate
world. Large corporations
can buy more supplies of
food, making it easier to
provide lower prices to the
consumer. A small mom-
and-pop shop can't compete
with these prices in today's
market, he said.
In Boston and Chicago,
he said, Italians started the
grocery business. In New
York, Detroit and
Cleveland, Jewish groups
began many of the chains.
"They (ethnic groups)
started these stores to cater
to their own groups," Mr.
Litwak said, adding that
little stores are starting to
pop up today in highly con-
centrated ethnic groups.
In Miami, Hispanic
stores are more prevalent.
Also entering the grocery
picture are many Korean,
Japanese and Middle East-
ern shops, he said.
When the most recent
sellers, Meadowdale CEO
David Page and Farmer
Jack CEO Paul Borman,
stepped away from their
respective grocery busi-
nesses, they joined nation-
al trends.
"There has been a lot of
consolidation," Mr. Litwak
said. "Major chains
dominate every area. An
independent really has to
have some kind of strong
point to make it out there
today."
The theory is simple:
Understand the rules of the
game.
"The idea is to be there
first," said Mr. Hiller,
whose family opened the
Greenfield and 10 Mile
Shopping Center Market in
1963, when the Jewish
community was migrating
northwest into Oak Park
and Southfield. Again in
1971, he saw a trend, and
Shopping Center opened its
largest store at Orchard
Lake and Maple.
"We watched the syn-
agogues and the kids
move," he said. "These
were our customers."
Unlike the larger chains,
Shopping Center. has no
generic brands and no
house brands on its
shelves, paving the way for
cottage industry items,
(smaller companies that
sell fewer, specialized pro-
ducts) of all kinds.
At Shopping Center, cot-
tage industry items are
big-ticket sellers. Mr.
Hiller even markets local
products like Jeff Finegood's
cookies, Linda Krasnik's
cakes and some homemade
pastas. If he doesn't carry a
product, he will order it.
The newest product is
tilapia, or St. Peter's fish,
rooted in Israel. The fish is
raised in Southern Califor-
nia as a joint venture of an
American and Israeli com-
pany.
Shopping Center is
unveiling the tilapia at its
newest location, which
opened last fall — a
60,000-square-foot super-
market at Haggerty and 14
Mile.
Like the Orchard Lake
store, it is upscale, catering
to a middle to upper-class
clientele. This store pro-
vides a full-service florist
shop and the Elizabeth
Green Boutique, filled with
handmade jewelry, baby
gifts and other accessories.'
In addition, a player
piano entertains shoppers
near a photo developing
station, a bank and a
bakery.
Mr. Hiller is not secretive
about the store's success. It
is bringing in $500,000 a
week, he said.
His father, Sidney, once a
Sales for artist Elizabeth Green have skyrocketed since she moved her
jewelry boutique from Franklin Athletic Club into the new Shopping
Center Market in West Bloomfield.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
27