Why Wegmans is opening a store in Montvale, N.J.

Wegmans, the Gates-based supermarket chain consistently ranked the best in the country by Consumer Reports, is opening a store in Montvale, N.J. this week — in part because chairman Danny Wegman fell in love with the family farm on the site.

“We actually dreamed of the family still continuing to run the farm and have our store there at the same time,” Wegman said in a phone interview with The (Bergen, N.J.) Record.

Wegman said he felt an immediate emotional connection to the farm and country store, which the DePiero family had operated in Montvale since 1924, and to the DePieros who were still running the farm. The day of his visit, he was served an Italian pastry that one of the DePieros had made at the on-site bakery at 4 a.m. that morning.

“It was really down home,” Wegman said. “Things we believe in.”

That vision — of a Wegmans store surrounded by a large working farm — didn’t materialize. The DePiero family decided it was time for them, for the most part, to exit the farming business, though they still farm a small parcel of land across West Grand Avenue.

But Wegman, and his daughter Colleen, the president and chief executive of Wegmans, are hoping their 108,000-square-foot store will exude the same family-operated, down home feel, even though it is part of a 93-store chain with annual sales last year of over $8 billion.

More: Colleen Wegman named president, CEO of Wegmans

Keeping the feel of a family-run business, where the owner is in the store every day, knows the employees and the customers, and takes care of them, while operating stores in six states “is the number one thing we think about and work on every single day,” Colleen Wegman said. Meanwhile, as online competition heats up from places like Fresh Direct and Amazon, which recently acquired Whole Foods Market, they are looking to expand their online services, too.

Colleen Wegman and her father believe the way you stay successful and balance tradition and growth is to make sure employees are the right fit for the Wegmans culture.

“We were very worried about growth outside of New York and somehow what’s happened is our culture has only grown stronger as we’ve grown,” Colleen Wegman said. When employees are a true fit with the Wegmans culture, she said, they embrace it “and it becomes contagious for the people around them and they’ve strengthened our culture.”

“Our whole approach,” Danny Wegman said, “is if we’re a great place for our people to work, they’ll do a great job taking care of our customers.”

WATCH: Q&A with Danny Wegman

Danny Wegman is the grandson of John Wegman, who founded Wegmans with his brother Walter, starting first with a fruit and vegetable pushcart, and opening their first produce store in 1916. The company is still privately owned by the Wegmans family.

But being down home and true to their more than 100 years of tradition doesn’t mean Wegmans doesn’t evolve and change. The company is universally praised by food industry analysts as being one of the best at listening to customers and giving them what they want.

Right now, Danny Wegman said, Wegmans is getting the message loud and clear that customers also want the convenience of online shopping.

“We think that’s an exploding part of our business,” Danny Wegman said.

Wegmans recently began using online platform Instacart for online ordering and deliveries and “the acceptance of it has been remarkable,” he said.

Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, he said, “made us realize we have to be digitally strong as well as good food operators.”

Wegmans had been looking at whether it should explore opening smaller stores, as industry thinking has shifted to the belief that millennials and all time-pressed shoppers don’t have time to shop 100,000-square-foot food emporiums.

But it now is focusing online as the best way to bring convenience to grocery shopping.

The Amazon acquisition is an example of how competition can improve rival companies, Danny Wegman said. “We think it was a great thing because it gave us a lot of focus,” he said.

“Obviously, competition creates change,” Danny Wegman said. “That’s the wonderful part about competition. In some ways you don’t welcome competition, but the reality is you do. Because it forces you to figure out what your customer really wants and what capabilities you need and how to do things. It really moves us all forward.”

In North Jersey, Wegmans is going up against some tough competition. The Wakefern food cooperative, with its ShopRite stores owned by local families who have also been in the food business for generation, are considered geniuses at keeping costs down and responding to customers. Stop & Shop, part of the international Ahold food conglomerate, like ShopRite, has been aggressively remodeling its stores and bringing in new features like sushi chefs and expanded produce departments.

“We know the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors,” Danny Wegman said, “but we really try to focus on customers instead of competitors.”

And one thing the Wegmans do know about their customers is a lot of them want a Wegmans closer to their homes. Last year, more than 7,800 people contacted the company asking for a store in their community.

With the new Montvale store, Danny Wegman is finally able to grant that wish for someone who had to wait for a nearby Wegmans, even though she is a Wegman.

“I was trying to get near my sister because she lives in Suffern, N.Y. and she wanted a store near her,” he said, with a chuckle.