During JR Communications’ tenure, Food Lion, LLC, operated more than 1,200 supermarkets under the names of Food Lion, Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food, Harveys and Reid’s, and employed approximately 73,000 associates in 11 Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

In 2006, Food Lion retained JR Communications to launch its new discount grocery chain, Bottom Dollar Food, throughout Washington, DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and in Virginia’s Tidewater region.

Food Lion faced some opposition in several communities whose residents and local officials wanted to know why they were getting a Bottom Dollar instead of a Bloom, the mid-grade grocery chain that the parent company also had been introducing in recent years.

Our cornerstone strategy was to brief public officials on the benefits and value of the new discount store concept. We arranged briefings with public officials in all the jurisdictions that would be getting a Bottom Dollar, identifying the right officials to meet with, handling the meeting logistics, developing the presentations and conducting the follow-up. Time and again, the strategy laid the necessary foundation for successful store openings.

For each of nearly a dozen new stores, JR Communications spearheaded media relations and event planning for ribbon cuttings and customer grand openings. This included securing the participation of public officials, arranging advance briefings with targeted media, and generating community attendance.

Food Lion’s corporate communications department quickly and increasingly grew to rely on JR Communications’ support across the board including strategic corporate communications, crisis communications, and, most notably, ongoing marketing support for all store brands that included numerous marketing promotions and local store events such as holiday drives and charity tie-ins.