Cosentino's Converts Price Chopper to 10% Cost-Plus Discount Banner

A converted Price Chopper store in Kansas City, Missouri, reopened October 23 as Chop More! by Price Chopper — a discount banner that prices every item at wholesale cost and adds a flat 10% markup at the register.

The store is the first test of the cost-plus model (items sold at the retailer's cost plus a fixed percentage) for Cosentino's Food Stores, the Overland Park, Kansas-based operator of 31 supermarkets. If the format works, it gives the family-owned regional grocer a direct answer to the low-price, limited-assortment banners squeezing conventional grocers nationwide.

"What we promise is when you walk out the door you are going to save money," John Cosentino, executive VP of Cosentino's Food Stores, told StartlandNews.com.

A Cosentino's spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

How does the cost-plus model change the economics?

The pricing promise is blunt: items carry the price Cosentino's pays for them, and the register adds 10%. No ads, no coupons, no loyalty cards. In a Facebook post, the retailer put it simply: "No more ads or coupons needed, just everyday low prices."

The format trades service depth for shelf-price credibility, and the cost structure shows it. The store will employ about 60 workers, down from about 100 when it operated as a Price Chopper, according to StartlandNews. Chop More! will not run service meat and bakery departments, though it will stock a wide assortment of packaged meats and bakery items. Merchandising leans cheap: some products sit in bins and on pallets on endcaps. Marketing spend is minimal — no loyalty program, no circular-driven promotion calendar.

That structure mirrors the playbook of limited-assortment discounters, where labor hours per store and advertising as a share of sales run far below conventional supermarket levels. The bet is that a transparent, single-digit-margin markup beats the high-low pricing game on customer economics.

Takeaway: the store strips out roughly 40% of its labor and nearly all promotional spending to fund a cost-plus price image.

Who is the wholesaler behind it?

Chop More! did not emerge in a vacuum. Cosentino's is a member of Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), the Kansas City, Kansas-based cooperative, and other AWG members have already tested the same model. Food Smart Cost Plus Outlet in Arkansas runs an identical cost-plus approach, StartlandNews reported.

These stores typically lean on AWG's price-focused private labels — Best Choice and Always Save — which give cost-plus banners shelf-level differentiation against name brands and additional margin room inside a fixed markup.

"Chop More's cost-plus model is an innovative approach that delivers quality products at competitive prices while creating a distinctive shopping experience," Dan Funk, president and CEO of AWG, told StartlandNews.com.

Funk's comment is an assertion, not a measured result — no sales figures, traffic data or margin disclosures exist yet for the converted store. What is measured so far: one location, roughly 60 employees, a 10% markup and a soft opening on Thursday, with a grand opening set for Tuesday, October 27.

Takeaway: AWG now has at least two members running cost-plus pilots, making the model a cooperative-level experiment in discount grocery.

Why is a regional grocer going discount now?

The opening lands as traditional grocers face sustained pressure from hard-discount chains. Aldi and Lidl keep expanding their U.S. footprints, offering shoppers relief from grocery inflation through limited assortments and private-label-heavy shelves. Walmart continues to refine its grocery offering and broaden its shopper base, and dollar stores keep adding food to their mix in markets across the country.

For a 31-store regional operator, the defensive logic is clear. Cosentino's runs 24 Price Chopper locations plus stores under the Cosentino's Market, Apple Market and Sun Fresh banners. A single converted store lets the company test whether a discount format can hold share in its home Kansas City market without cannibalizing the conventional banners — and without a full network redesign.

The company is also mid-cycle on growth capital: Cosentino's is in the midst of a $40 million investment in new stores and renovations, according to StartlandNews.

Chop More! will carry both name brands and private labels, which softens the format's edge versus pure hard discounters but widens its appeal to shoppers who still want familiar labels.

Takeaway: one store is a cheap experiment for a chain spending $40 million on its future — the discount banner is a hedge, not a pivot.

What happens next?

Watch the grand opening on October 27 and the quarters that follow: if Chop More! holds volume with 40% fewer employees and no promotional spending, the cost-plus math could spread across more of Cosentino's 31 stores — and give AWG another data point in the co-op's quiet discount grocery push.