Sutton Place Group LLC (Bethesda, Md.), owner and operator of 11specialty food markets and six restaurants throughout the East Coast — including Sutton Place Gourmet, Hay Day Country Farm Market and Balducci’s — has announced plans to unite its operations under one name: Balducci’s. The company’s tagline will be “Food Lover’s Market.”
“The Balducci’s name will help to attract the very best chefs, foods, employees and business partners in the world, something that Sutton Place and Hay Day Country Farm Market have not recently been able to do on their own,” said Mark Ordan, new president and ceo of Sutton Place Group.
According to Ordan, while Sutton Place and Hay Day were once outstanding stores, “a lack of resources in recent years kept this company from growing, and indeed led to a loss of some of the customer base. The brands lost their luster, and became associated with excessively high prices. With the recent infusion of new resources and management, we now have the ability to offer a wider selection of products, better prices and better service throughout our stores. It makes sense to do that under the name that is arguably the most famous in U.S. food retailing history.”
The name change is part of an overall months-long repositioning effort for the Sutton Place and Hay Day stores, as well as the existing Balducci’s store in New York City. Since welcoming the new ownership group in November 2003, customers have seen a drop in product prices, and will soon notice new uniforms, grocery bags and internal signage. In the months ahead, customers will see more brands, more variety, and a much better line of private labels. Although the name change will begin to take effect immediately, external signage is not expected to change until this fall.