Steve Burd

Power 50 Ranking: 3 Title: Chairman, president and CEO Company: Safeway Key Developments: Finding ways to cut costs to invest savings in everyday pricing as the lifestyle conversion nears its end. What's Next: Helping the U.S. find a solution to the health care issue.

Steve Burd, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway, has spent the last few months strategizing about the health of his company, the nation and, in a broad sense, the world.

As the economy has weakened, Safeway has had to figure out how to accommodate its quality-oriented format to a customer more interested in value than imported cheeses. According to Burd, Safeway lowered pricing without impairing the customer experience by reducing capital spending and taking a more aggressive position on cost reductions — for example, finding ways to cut seconds off the checkout process.

“Some people on Wall Street have questioned whether we have the right strategy for a recession,” Burd said late last year. “But recessions are temporary, and we believe you build a strategy to create long-term shareholder value, not to deal with a recession.”

He said the chain expects to double cash flow as its program of upgrading stores to the lifestyle format nears completion this year.

Simeon Gutman, a New York-based analyst with Canaccord Adams, Vancouver, British Columbia, said Safeway actually started working on its value proposition earlier than most observers give it credit for “because of having so many stores in California. It’s still operating in a high-low capacity, but the lower everyday pricing gives it greater leeway to be more competitive.”

Safeway is also investing in the health of the nation and the world through the distribution of two of its very successful proprietary product lines — O Organics, its organic food line, and Eating Right, a health and wellness line — to retailers around the U.S. and abroad.

Burd appears to be on a personal mission to alter the way people pay for health care, based on the approach Safeway has been using, which incentivizes individuals to take better care of themselves — for example, by quitting smoking or losing weight — so they can lower the insurance costs they pay.

Safeway has “a better cost curve than its peers,” which justifies the chain’s plans to develop a consulting business to help other companies lower their health care costs, Gutman said.

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Safeway Tweaks Incentive Program
Dec 13, 2011, Supermarket News, By JON SPRINGER
PLEASANTON, Calif. — Safeway’s top executives in 2012 can earn a new type of incentive award that better links pay to the company’s financial performance.

NATURE'S BOUNTY
Nov 14, 2011, Supermarket News, By CAROL ANGRISANI
What is 305 feet long, weighs 11,303 pounds and required 1,032 bolts to assemble? The world's longest picnic table. Safeway proudly holds the title after earning a Guinness World Record for assembling the table on National Picnic Day in June at Marina Green in San Francisco. As part of an out-of-the-box marketing event for its new Open Nature natural product line, the retailer invited more than 400

Safeway's Bold Bid to Capitalize on Sales Data
Oct 31, 2011, Supermarket News, By DAVID ORGEL Editor-in-Chief david.orgel@penton.com
Data, data everywhere. But it's not truly leveraged, so why should we care? That's not a verse from Frost, Poe or Whitman, but rather yours truly seeking a fresh way to state an old problem: how to effectively use the flood of customer sales data at retail. So many loyalty programs today are really just glorified discount initiatives without personalization. That's why Safeway's Just for U digital

Safeway Touts 'Stealth Pricing' Advantage
Oct 17, 2011, Supermarket News, By ELLIOT ZWIEBACH
PLEASANTON, Calif. Safeway here said last week its Just for U digital marketing platform gives it the ability to offer stealth pricing that falls below competitors' radar. We believe we can nullify the effect of competition because what we do will be mostly invisible to other retailers, giving us more flexibility on price than anyone we compete with and doing so on a more personalized basis, Steve

Safeway Touts 'Stealth Pricing,' Q3 Volume Slides
Oct 13, 2011, Supermarket News, By ELLIOT ZWIEBACH
PLEASANTON, Calif. - Safeway here said Thursday its

Safeway Names Chief Medical Officer
Sep 26, 2011, Supermarket News, By SN STAFF
PLEASANTON, Calif. — Safeway here said Monday it has named Dr. Kent Bradley as its chief medical officer, a new position focused on enhancing and building the chain's reputation as a health care innovator.

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