TOUR: Fruit Tree Farm - Baldwin, NY

Fruit Tree Farm

Owner: Chang Gyu Choi

Opened: 2001 as Met Foodmarkets, ca. 2016 as Fruit Tree Farm

Cooperative: Retail Grocers Group (this location only)

Location: 1197 Grand Ave, Baldwin, NY

Photographed: December 2018

It seems there's been a lot of changes over time in quite a few of these independent supermarkets, as we saw an Associated-turned-Key Food, an Associated-turned-Foodtown, a Key Food-turned-CTown, and here, a Met Foods-turned-Associated-turned-Fruit Tree Farm. (It's important to note that Key Food and Krasdale are almost always the winners, and Associated and affiliates almost always the losers.) While this Fruit Tree Farm is affiliated with Retail Grocers Group and sells Parade products, the other location in Copiague is affiliated with Associated Supermarket Group and sells Avenue A products. While I don't know what this store was originally, it was definitely a supermarket. I love the tower!

Alright, that's one way to do it. We'll see many artifacts inside the store from its various past tenants. Produce, deli, and bakery are the main focus in a wide first aisle. Meat and seafood run along the back wall, with dairy in the last aisle and frozen foods in a front alcove.

Quite an expansive selection in a relatively small space.

The hanging decor here looks new from Fruit Tree Farm, and there's a good chance the wooden structure is too, but we'll see some items that are definitely from Met Foods, two tenants ago.

The selection of produce is enormous, and clearly what this store specializes in. Very impressive. Deli runs along the side wall of the store.

As much as I hate to speculate (okay, I love to speculate, it's what I spend most of my time on this blog doing), that light structure looks a lot like the CTown ones we discussed a while ago. Coincidence or was this store also a CTown before Met Foods? No idea.

Meats run along the back wall. The aisle markers are most certainly left over from Met Foods...

Let's break this down for a second. The triangle design with the number is pulled straight out of the Met Foodmarkets logo, and the font for the categories is the same as the word "Foodmarkets" in the logo. The yellow stripe across the aisle marker lined up with the yellow stripe in the Met logo. The Met logo in the top left corner would've been covered by an Associated decal on the top part, reading "Associated Foodmarkets." Then Fruit Tree Farm covered the entire thing with a new logo, but lining up the black "Fruit Tree Farm" bar exactly where the black "Foodmarkets" bar would've been in the Met logo. And that awning looks suspiciously CTown-like, now that I'm thinking about it. See this example in New London, previously a CTown.

Fairly standard grocery aisles, with a large seafood department tucked away in the back corner. Notice the Fine Fare (the primary retail banner of Retail Grocers Group) price sign visible in the second grocery aisle picture.

Dairy and beer in the last aisle.

Frozen in the front corner with some more Fine Fare price signs.

If we look at this picture of the front end, I know I've seen that font (visible here in "for Shopping") in some other supermarket decor, but I can't place which store. Any thoughts? Anyway, that about wraps up Fruit Tree Farm -- definitely heavy on the perishables, which is where this store does best! Now, we're gonna hang around Baldwin for a while longer because there's plenty to see here.