The Acquistapace family has a long and storied history in Louisiana retail, dating back more than 150 years. The family legacy began in the grocery sector in the 1860s and evolved to add wine and spirits retail at the end of Prohibition, and beverage alcohol is now a key component of this multi-faceted business. The family’s three stores in Louisiana’s Northshore, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, combine the feel of a neighborhood grocer with the high-end product assortment of a fine wine and spirits shop, and the Acquistapaces make sure both of those pieces work together to create a complete shopping experience.
Creative marketing and merchandising have been key tools in the family’s business arsenal for decades. The Acquistapaces originally added wine to their grocery stores to encourage shoppers to buy meat—their grocery specialty—and over the years they’ve furthered their commitment to beverage by merchandising wine and spirits with a variety of other products, from cheese to produce. “Our strategy is to have a world class fine wine and spirits store inside a grocery store,” says manager Adam Acquistapace. “Wine and spirits are part of our traffic-generating strategy and of our identity. We’ve invested a lot of time and resources into building this selection of products—we have wine from all over the world and we price it right.”
For his creative take on marketing, merchandising, and community outreach, 2018 Market Watch Leader Adam Acquistapace earns this year’s Market Watch Leaders Best Marketing Award.
A Family Legacy
Adam and his brother Erik grew up in the family business, as did their father Steve, whose parents opened a neighborhood supermarket in 1963 along the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain. Steve opened his own store nearby in Covington, Louisiana—where the flagship is still located— in 1985. Louisiana has unrestrictive laws for beverage retail, and grocery stores throughout the state sell wine and spirits. Adam notes that his family’s stores have sold beverage alcohol since the 1930s, but they made a real commitment to the sector in 1999 when Steve changed his store’s layout so that wine could be more prominent. Adam began managing the beverage alcohol department in 2003 and now acts as general manager of the entire family business. Erik runs the cheese department, another crucial and deep section of the company’s grocery business, and he also oversees perishable goods, among other areas. Steve is all but retired, though he still comes into the stores daily. All three Acquistapaces were named 2018 Market Watch Leaders.
“When I took over the wine department, I didn’t know anything about wine,” Adam recalls. “My dad said I had to learn about business and become an expert in something. I took two years to learn about wine and spirits and got involved with the Society of Wine Educators. I now encourage and incentivize our staff to read the materials for the Certified Specialist of Wine and Spirits (CSW and CSS) and take the certification tests. My brother is a cheese professional and I took the wine path.”
Today, the family owns three stores, with a fourth in the works to open next year. Acquistapace’s Covington Supermarket, the flagship location, is currently the biggest, spanning 30,000 square feet and stocking a wide assortment of grocery and beverage items. Adam describes it as a supermarket with “cool stuff from all over the world” and adds that it’s a neighborhood grocery store with a cavern of wine and spirits inside. The beverage department has products stacked to the ceiling.
The family added the 8,000-square-foot Mandeville Wine & Cheese store in 2016 and the 15,000-square-foot Slidell Wine Warehouse in 2019, both also in Louisiana’s Northshore. Adam likens Mandeville to a high-end fine wine shop but adds that it’s also a convenience location due to its position near the foot of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Meanwhile, Slidell is more of a big-box model with a massive array of beverage products and a sales strategy that emphasizes low prices. Both stores make a big commitment to the drinks side of the business but also offer the company’s key grocery items, including fresh meat and cheese. Company-wide, the Acquistapace stores carry about 10,000 wine, spirits, and beer SKUs, though the product assortment varies by location. The family declines to release revenue figures but says that beverage alcohol makes up about 30% of total sales. Of that, wine leads the drinks business at 60% of sales, followed by spirits at 30% and beer at 10%.
When the Acquistapace’s fourth unit opens next year, also in the Northshore, Louisiana market, it will be the family’s most ambitious location by far. Adam says the new store will span 75,000 square feet, including a full grocery store space and upwards of 25,000 square feet for wine, spirits, beer, and RTDs, making it the largest beverage footprint company-wide.
“We want our growth to be sustainable—we’re not growing just to grow,” Adam says. “The fine wine shop inside of a grocery store is a more sustainable model for us than a standalone wine shop. Each store has a different selection—some of it is market-driven and some of it is driven by customers.”
Customer Connection
Acquistapace’s Covington Supermarket was built as a neighborhood store and that mentality remains vital to the company’s ethos. Much of the family’s marketing tactics revolve around community events and involvement, with the overall goal to be a good neighbor and supportive local partner. Events that invite people into the stores are paramount, and the company hosts themed events regularly as part of its marketing initiatives. One of the biggest, Acquistapace’s Cheese Extravaganza, is a highlight.
The Cheese Extravaganza, which Adam’s brother Erik was instrumental in creating, is a free event that takes place every fall at the Covington store to highlight its assortment of more than 600 cheeses. The weekend event is designed to invite people in and Adam says between 8,000 and 10,000 guests usually attend. Cheese samples are available and wine and spirits are frequently featured. “We shut the store down and celebrate cheese,” Adam says. “The event has won national marketing awards in the grocery industry and we’re in the Guinness World Records for the world’s largest cheese carving. When it comes to events, you can’t pay attention to the money. We do this for our image. It creates excitement, elevates us, and enhances customer experience.” Themed events are frequent across the Acquistapace stores. The company hosts a Tasting Europe event in the spring, in which it highlights many of its European grocery and wine items and offers samples for free, and it hosts a tasting event around the start of each school year that allows parents to celebrate their kids returning to the classroom. In early summer, the stores host Tasting Local, an event that showcases products from local producers and purveyors in the stores. The family’s Covington, Louisiana store also has an adjacent event space for hosting themed classes, tastings, and special functions. Near Mardi Gras in February the company becomes a King Cake destination, as it partners with local bakeries to sell the popular cakes throughout its stores, and near Thanksgiving its sells Cajun fried turkeys, another local seasonal specialty that’s highly sought after.
“We’re trying to create excitement in a way that other stores don’t,” Adam says. “We’re a champion for other small family businesses and we focus on creating community. We look at ourselves as the town square of our area and we want to be known for that. We want people walking through our stores. We’re not a big store but we do a lot of really cool stuff.”
The Acquistapaces also partner with the local television station WWL-TV for a segment called “Great Day Louisiana,” and Adam has been a regular guest for two years. He’s featured on two segments—Happiest Hour, during which he promotes wine and food, and The Acquistapace’s Kitchen, where he works with local restaurants, chefs, and mixologists to create food and drinks and share both culinary and bar tips. This marketing strategy has vastly expanded the family’s reach and notoriety within the Northshore, Louisiana market.
The company also supports local non-profits by supplying wine and spirits for events and for charity auctions, and it helps raise money for local groups that help at-risk populations near their stores. “When we get allocations of rare whiskies, we donate most of it to non-profits for them to auction off,” Adam says. It’s important for us to be engrained into other local businesses and our towns.”
Product Assortment
Wine leads drinks sales at Acquistapace stores by a wide margin—60% of total beverage sales and roughly 6,600 SKUs. The company’s top-sellers include Bonanza Cabernet Sauvignon ($17 a 750-ml.), Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label ($54), and La Marca Prosecco ($14). Adam says consumers are showing increased interest in white wines recently, and he adds that rosés and well-priced sparkling labels are also doing well. His stores focus on French and Italian labels because that’s where Adam’s personal interest lies, especially wines from Italy.
“We’re over-indexed on French and Italian wine because we like it,” Adam says. We’re always going to champion fine wine and family-owned estates and distilleries. That’s where the business is going to continue to go.”
In spirits, whisk(e)y continues to excel and Tequila remains popular, Adam says. Whiskies produced by Sazerac generate the most buzz and Adam notes that people are also showing interest in heritage distillers like Heaven Hill and Jim Beam. Spirits comprise 30% of drinks sales and the company has about 2,500 spirits SKUs. Top-sellers include Buffalo Trace ($24 a 750-ml.), Tito’s vodka ($32 a 1.75-liter), and Jack Daniel’s ($39 a 1.75-liter).
Beer is a smaller player at 10% of drinks sales, and RTDs and THC beverages are taking up share in the segment. With about 800 beer SKUs, Adam says Mexican brews and local craft players move well. Top-selling beers include Michelob Ultra ($28 a 24-pack of cans), Gnarly Barley Jucifer ($20), and Coor’s Light ($25).
Louisiana doesn’t allow private label products, as state law mandates that every brand sold must be available to every retailer on the same terms. By that metric, Acquistapace doesn’t offer proprietary or exclusive labels. But Adam says his stores are often the only retailers locally to carry certain products, especially Bordeaux and other French labels, and he calls that a strategic part of the business.
The company’s grocer and beverage business model is helping it navigate tough times. “Our business model is very resilient to change because it’s diversified,” Adam explains, adding that being a family business also helps the bottom line. “It’s hard to separate family from business. There’s advantages to a family business, the biggest being longevity, sustainability, and continuity.”
Going forward, with growth on the horizon and change always looming, the Acquistapaces plan to focus on what they do best—making their stores a destination for local shoppers and helping the community. “We want people to feel comfortable in our stores—hospitality and service are very important,” Adam says. “Celebrating food and wine and spirits under the same umbrella is also important and we’re going to continue to focus on putting them together.”
