Where’s the Beef? And Eggs? And Cereal?

The Kroger Co. (Cincinnati), the country’s largest supermarket retailer, has opened a 105,000-square-foot store in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, its largest supermarket to date.

Taking direct aim at Wal-Mart, Target and Meijer hypermarkets, the store — four football fields in size — contains a Fred Meyer Jewelers outlet and aisles of dinnerware, kitchen appliances and office furniture.

Kroger pulled its pharmacy, beauty aids and cosmetics into a single corner of the store, to compete more directly with CVS and Walgreens. And it has an expanded pet-supplies aisle, to compete with pet supply category-killers like Petsmart.

The store also contains 2500 kinds of wine, 3100 organic and “nutritional” foods and 4000 international items.

“We obviously are trying to get shoppers to spend more time in Kroger stores and less at Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreens,” Bob Hodge, head of Kroger’s Cincinnati-Dayton division, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “We offer a lot of products they offer. We certainly are doing more in the areas of things that department stores do. When you see that kitchen set over there, that’s going to compare to what you’d see at Lazarus and Target.

“They’re not going to beat us on fine jewelry,” Hodge said. “The kitchen set, nutrition, international food, seasonal merchandise – we don’t have any trouble competing with them on price and quality. They’re profitable categories, and we think we offer (better) services.”

Though shoppers will find desks and mahogany tables on display, “we’re not trying to be a furniture store,” Hodge said. But Kroger is putting to work the expertise of Fred Meyer Stores (Portland, Ore.), which it acquired in 1999. “What we’ve done is use Fred Meyer’s expertise in merchandise and bring in what works,” said Jerry Vogt, Kroger’s merchandise manager.

Hodge said the plan is to keep the merchandise fresh. Kitchenware will turn over completely twice a year, the seasonal merchandise six times. He said Kroger has also learned that higher-quality merchandise sells better. In patio tables, for instance, “we sell a lot more $400 ones than $79 ones,” he said. “We’re beating Wal-Mart and Home Depot on all the summer merchandise.”