Small Grocery & Rural Market Design-Build

In many small towns the grocery store is the only place to buy fresh food for miles. That makes it a different kind of store from a convenience store, even when it is the same size. Customers come for a full shop, not a quick stop, and most of what they buy needs to stay cold. The design starts with refrigeration.

Where a small grocery differs

Designing the cold chain

Refrigeration is the most expensive part of a grocery build and the hardest to change later. We design it as one system:

• Display cases for produce, dairy, meat and frozen, placed where shoppers expect them.
• Walk-in coolers and freezers behind the sales floor, sized for your delivery schedule so product goes straight from the truck to cold storage.
• Refrigeration calculations and power requirements for the whole package, so the electrical layout supports it.

We install the refrigeration lines we carry, including Heatcraft and Russell systems and Anthony and Styleline display doors. For walk-in sizing and what drives the cost, see our walk-in cooler installation cost guide.

Laying out the floor

A good grocery layout puts staples like milk and eggs where shoppers pass other departments to reach them. Produce usually sits near the entrance. Fresh and frozen run along the walls where the refrigeration can be fed from the back room. Center aisles hold dry goods on gondola shelving. Checkout sits at the exit with space for carts. Our shelving guide and gondola layout guide cover the details.

What we deliver

A small grocery follows the same eight steps as every store we build: floor plan, equipment package, framing layout, electrical layout, walk-in coolers and freezers, cabinets and shelving, color and graphics, and the store delivery package. One company draws the plan and installs the equipment, so the cases you were shown are the cases that fit the walls.

Our work

Our project pages include Real Ranch Fed Beef in Roff, Oklahoma, a facility outfitted with commercial cold storage and processing equipment, and the Love County Food Bank in Marietta, Oklahoma, where we supplied commercial refrigeration and storage to keep donated perishables cold. See them on the projects page.

Send us the building size or floor plan, the departments you want to carry and whether it is a new store or an existing one. We will tell you what the refrigeration package needs and what a design would cover.