Situated in the Toronto Metro area, Bruno's Fine Foods is a full-service grocery store located in the heart of an upscale neighborhood. ECRS caught up with store manager Al McMurray, who talked with us about how he's using Catapult to streamline operations at Bruno's.

ECRS : Tell us a little bit about Bruno's.

McMurray : Bruno's is a fine foods market that specializes in a broad array of imported grocery and deli items, including fresh produce, quality cheeses, and a variety of aged beef. We pride ourselves particularly on our non-packaged, full-service meat counter. Bruno's has been providing its products to the Toronto area since the early 1970s.

ECRS : What sort of clientele does Bruno's serve? 

McMurray : The majority of our current customer base consists of middle-aged locals and senior citizens who really seem to appreciate our home-grown atmosphere and attention to customer service. We have recently noticed a trend of younger professionals and families moving into the area who are becoming regular customers as well.

ECRS : How did you arrive at Catapult as your enterprise solution?

McMurray : Once we decided that Bruno's needed a modern store solution, we began researching the POS software possibilities. After a while we had narrowed our options down to three, including Catapult, Sweda, and a low-end scanning package. The customizable interfaces were perhaps the strongest of several reasons we finally decided to go with Catapult. We were coming out of the TEC register experience and needed a solution that would be powerful, but which would also provide a smooth transition from our register-based past. We chose Catapult because it was able to fulfill this dual role. Its easy learning curve continues to allow new employees to jump right in and learn the system quickly.

ECRS : What Catapult reports do you rely on most heavily?

McMurray : We run a number of reports on a daily and weekly basis. At the end of every day we do a Financial Summary and a Department Net Sales report. At the end of every employee's shift we run a Cashier Activity report. We run the Department Net Sales report on a weekly basis as well. Catapult's Optimized Inventory Movement report is very valuable for us as too, so we run that periodically.

ECRS : How does the data generated by these reports guide you as a store manager?

McMurray : Because our store is part of a larger company that has been in the grocery business for three decades, our management tends to have good intuition concerning the kinds of products our customers want to see on our shelves. Catapult gives us the raw data we need to either reinforce or rethink the buying decisions we make. We now have detailed departmental readings, including valuable item movement data and shrinkage figures. As an analysis tool, Catapult is helping Bruno's improve margins by updating prices in a way that just isn't available with individual ticketing. Plus, Catapult has been able to alleviate some security concerns we were having about products we thought were being shoplifted because they were moving so quickly. Catapult's reporting put our fears to rest because we were able to see that these particular items were actually being scanned and sold at the point of sale.

ECRS : In what other ways does Catapult help you automate your business processes?

McMurray : We have two primary wholesalers, one of which has a very unique type of barcode for its products. Our local dealer helped us set up Catapult's LabelVision interface to design, print, and scan these wholesaler-specific labels. We used to spend many tedious hours approaching this task manually. But thanks to our local dealer, and to Catapult's flexible label interface, this aspect of our business is fully automated.

ECRS : Would you care to comment on the service provided by your local Catapult dealer?

McMurray : They have always been very helpful and professional with implementation, training, and troubleshooting. They are a quality company.

ECRS : Would you recommend Catapult to other grocery retailers?

McMurray : Absolutely.