Stop & Shop unveils new logo

The Stop & Shop logo is getting a major facelift. The local grocery chain will unveil the new logo at its Quincy headquarters tomorrow.

Gone are the red and green traffic lights that served as the company's symbol since it opened in 1914 In their place: a yellow bowl with three colorful halves that can be interpreted as bowls of fruit, bread or ingredients, the company's spokesperson said.

“Customers talked and we listened,” Andrea Astrachan, consumer advisor at Stop & Shop, said in a news release. “The new look shows customers that we’re making changes and committed to providing great food and meal solutions at low prices everyday.”

Many of the stores will also get advanced product scanning and checkout technology, like handheld scanners that let shoppers keep a running tab of their purchases, and ring them up instantly at automated checkout stations. Stop & Shop has deployed the technology in about 90 of its stores since 2005.; the number will double over the next year, said Jim Dwyer, chief business development officer for Ahold USA, Stop & Shop's parent company.

Dwyer said that the new technology would help reduce labor costs, but that it's mainly intended to make life easier for shoppers.

"The objective is to make it easier for them to get in and out of the store," he said.

Mothers had complained about checkout lines where children are tempted by racks of candy bars and confronted by sexually-suggestive magazines. The new checkout lanes, called "smile aisles," have been purged of these distractions. Each remodeled store will have a few of these aisles.

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company has more than 59,000 employees in its stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey.
(By Angel Jennings, Globe correspondent)