Gristedes Supermarkets

The Company

Red Apple Group, Inc. is a private company with over 7,800 employees whose business ventures include supermarkets, gasoline stations, refining and transporting oil, and convenience stores. Their market saturation includes New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Gristedes Foods, Inc., a division of the Red Apple Group, currently has over 50 locations spanning throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and Westchester and employs approximately 2,500 associates. Gristedes’ growth is attributed to their commitment to providing their customers with quality products and services..

The Challenge

Gristedes Supermarkets is a union organization that utilized fax machines and a phone system integrated with faxing capabilities for daily correspondence with their 35 stores, due to legal compliance requirements. After upgrading their phone system, Gristedes faced the challenge of unifying the fax infrastructure, since their new IP based phone system no longer supported analog fax. As a result, Gristedes realized that a cohesive fax solution that was cost effective and efficient would better fit their business needs, as it would enhance daily operations and reduce operating costs.

The Solution

Gristedes evaluated five fax solutions including on-premises fax server hardware to find a reliable fax solution with a centralized infrastructure. Concord Fax Online, an IP fax service, was chosen based on their ease of deployment, cost-effectiveness, reliability, network capabilities and functionality. Concord Fax Online was a logical choice due to speed of implementation and real-time failover for both inbound and outbound communication, as well as high availability. “We’ve come to depend on things like email, internet, faxing, and telephony; when it’s a multibillion dollar business they have to be up and running,” stated Christopher McCrae, Chief Information Officer at Gristedes Supermarkets.

The Results

Gristedes integrated Concord Fax Online with their email system and received a comprehensive solution which included operational support of fax without any capital investment. Gristedes also received responsive customer service by a knowledgeable support staff that is always ready to help when needed. Presently, Gristedes utilizes Concord Fax Online’s Fax to Email (F2E) and Email to Fax (E2F) features. When the email is sent to the Concord network, the attachments are processed and transformed into a format suitable for delivery to fax machines. The fax is then delivered to its destination fax machine anywhere in the world and the delivery status is returned to the sender in the form of an email message. With the Concord Fax Online integration Gristedes is able to operate, collaborate, and transfer data, efficiently and inexpensively with their stores.

“Concord Fax Online has done a good job with making their service easy, affordable and very intuitive. IT now emails employees their fax numbers with directions on how to use the service without any type of training,”

Chris McCrae, Chief Information Officer, Gristedes Supermarkets