Winn-Dixie stocks specialty items on 'endless aisle'
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published June 9, 2003
Winn-Dixie stores carry three-way Skyline Chili in Cincinnati, Busha Browne's jerk seasoning in the Bahamas and Justin Wilson's Wicked Cajun Pickles in New Orleans.
You won't find those products in Tampa Bay area Winn-Dixie stores. But now you can buy them online through Winn-Dixie's Express Special Purchase service at winn-dixie.com.
The Jacksonville supermarket chain stocks its warehouses with more than 100,000 items for its 1,070 stores spread across 12 states. But individual stores carry only about 30,000 of them.
Winn-Dixie this week made the other 70,000 available by linking its Web site to an "endless aisle" operated by neXpansion, a venture controlled by Parmalat SpA, a food and dairy product manufacturer, and Cendant Corp., the consumer services company that also owns Avis and many hotel brands.
Online shoppers can order any nonperishable item that Winn-Dixie stocks anywhere. The selections includes international foods carried only in ethnic neighborhood stores. Then neXpansion orders the item and ships it through such services as UPS or FedEx for a fee. Delivery can take from a few days to a month.
"We carry a lot of regional products that might have a big local following but cannot be found elsewhere," said Joanne Gage, a Winn-Dixie spokeswoman. "In places like Florida that have a lot of transplants and part-time residents, people yearn for products or brands from back home."
Because neXpansion has deals with other supermarket chains in other states, the service can fill special orders for nonperishable food products not carried by Winn-Dixie, too.
