The Yankee Marketeers

With all the glitter and glamour, it might have been the premiere of a new Fellini film. Row after row of limousines pulled up, cameras clicked on all sides, and the chic, smartly dressed guests sipped Scotch and martinis as they ogled a pop art exhibition that included plastic turkeys, fish, steaks and a display of Andy Warhol's stacked Brillo Boxes. There were roughly 500 Ibs. of real food per person--and no wonder. The bash that brought out Rome's smart set last week was the opening of Italy's largest supermarket, a two-story, 33,000-sq.-ft. expanse within sight of St. Peter's that stocks 20,000 products and has everything from a lunch counter to a dress shop.

A Bit Ridiculous. The new store is the latest addition to a fast-growing, American-owned international supermarket chain called Minimax (for "minimum prices, maximum quality"). Minimax is devoted to the idea that the emerging consumer class in Europe and elsewhere strongly wants such Yankee selling innovations as self-service, the checkout counter, prepackaged and frozen foods, big stores and plenty of parking space--and it tries to give them what they want in each of its 19 stores. Sometimes the buyers are so eager for American goods that they act a bit ridiculous. Last week's shoppers at the new Minimax snatched up cat food whether or not they had cats (the store finally had to assign a clerk to explain that the food was for cats; said one Italian shopper: "Then I'll get a cat"), bought up huge quantities of Kraft's "Italian" salad dressing and ripe olives canned in the U.S.

Minimax has gone into Rome with two stores in the last six months, plans four more within two years, including a 66,000-sq.-ft. circular supermarket that will be Europe's largest single food store. The largest store now is also owned by Minimax: its Pryca store in Madrid, which sells TV sets as well as T-bone steaks, also provides shoe repair and coin-operated laundry service. So successful is the store that the chain is already building three more stores in Madrid, two in Barcelona and one in Malaga.

The Minimax chain is owned by two American brothers, Ralph Brandon, 65, and David Brandon, 61, who first ventured into the supermarket business 20 years ago in Cuba after making a fortune there in textile mills and finance. Despite some skepticism that Latin men would never be seen pushing a grocery cart, their first supermarket in Havana was an immediate success, and soon the brothers Brandon owned a chain of 14 stores in Cuba. When Castro nationalized their stores in 1960, the Brandons started anew in Mexico, where they now own four stores and operate twelve others.

Looking North. Wherever they have turned, the Brandon brothers have made supermarketing look easy. Says Ralph Brandon: "We based our first decision to enter the business on the premise that people are alike all over the world. We weren't wrong then, and we still haven't been proved wrong." The Brandon brothers have been helped, of course, by their flair for promotional showmanship and their insistence that their stores mark prices low enough to ensure fast turnover (the new Rome store's expected gross this year: $5,000,000). After only a year, Minimax is well on its way to becoming one of the largest retail food chains in Europe. The Brandon brothers plan eventually to spread north to the even more lucrative markets of France and West Germany.

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