instore - October 2017 - 14

cover story

Sometime in the late 1960's, LaBerta says, two Straub's meat cutters,
Bob Schierding and Sal Asaro, started making and selling chicken salad
out of the meat case using a bone-in chicken breast. It sold well by the
standards of the time - about 10 to 20 lbs. a week.
In the '80's, Straub's decided to sell it in all four stores. Production was
moved to the kitchen in Schierding's home and supervised by his wife,
Joyce. Before long, Straub's was selling 120 lbs. a week. By the '90's,
demand was so strong, it was being made in the commercial kitchen
of the Clayton store. Joyce, who retired in 2009, trained the current

chicken salad team - including backups, in case one of the two fulltimers is out. "We don't mess with the chicken salad," LaBerta says.

Bakery: in-house, local
make the difference
Bakery may never be as big as deli prepared at Straub's, but LaBerta
says the department has gotten a big boost under Valenti's watch, with
"oodles of new products" on shelves and in cases.

No delivery too small
Ever since Amazon announced in June it was buying Whole Foods
Market, grocery retailers have been falling over themselves trying
to prove that they, too, are no slouches when it comes to grocery
deliveries. Retailers announcing new deals with Instacart and other
online delivery experts were as much a part of summer as the jingle of
the ice cream truck.
Straub's got a bit of a head start on them. Jack Straub, the 21st century
patriarch of the family business, recalls stories passed down by his
grandfather, company founder William Straub, from the early days of
the 116-year-old company.
In one, from 1950, a long row of women wearing phone headsets sit at
desks in front of the windows of that very hallway. It looks like a photo
of operators at a phone company. But they're Straub's employees, taking
orders for deliveries. Another photo on the wall, of the same vintage,
shows a line of Straub's trucks parked in the Clayton store parking lot,
ready to make those deliveries.

Jack Straub tells this story from the Clayton store's wide second floor
hallway, which runs the length of the store and looks down on the retail
operation below. On the wall behind him are vintage black-and-white
photos illustrating the history of Straub's.

That particular service is a thing of the past, but Straub's still delivers. Its
Miss Hulling's cakes, for instance, ship all over the country, Valenti says.
It's more proof that what LaBerta says about Straub's isn't just empty
words: "We were founded on service."

STRAUB'S

"My grandfather would get a call from a customer who needed a loaf of
bread," he says. "So he'd get in his horse and buggy and deliver it." Later
that same day, the same customer would call back, this time asking for
a bottle of milk. So William would hitch up the horse again, climb back in
the buggy and deliver a bottle of milk.

JOHN UNREIN - SOSLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY

14 * OCTOBER 2017 * instore

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