"How much do you guys pay for bananas?" Joe Villarreal asked a small group of visitors during a tour of the newly-opened Joe V's Smart Shop in Acres Homes. "About 49 cents, right?"

"Well, here they're three pounds for a dollar and that’s an everyday price," he smiled, continuing through the new low-cost grocery store concept developed by H-E-B to serve communities with limited access to affordable food, areas commonly known as food deserts.

"These cans of fruit are always three for a dollar,” continued Villarreal, the "Joe V" before the Smart Shop name and one of the store’s original designers.

Fighting food deserts

The Acres Homes Joe V’s marks the chain's fourth branch in Houston, with other outlets in low-income neighborhoods typically overlooked by the profit-focused food retail industry. One needs to look no further than the plethora of grocery stores in Montrose, River Oaks, and the Heights to see the disparity.

"We wanted a store that focused directly on price for our shoppers, but delivered the same quality you'd expect at any other H-E-B,” said Armando Perez, the H-E-B senior vice president who oversees Joe V's operational practices.

"As a company, it was important for us to have a format that could work in a number of communities," he said, describing the layout of the 55,000-square-foot space, all carefully arranged to limit the number of times stocking staff moves merchandise. “All these products literally come straight off the delivery truck.

The goal, Perez said, was to keep food prices 15 to 20 percent below the Houston average.

Meat and seafood counters have been replaced with freezers of high-quality selections. Freshly-baked bread is made on-site, but bagged and offered directly to customers rather from a fully-staffed bakery.

The store itself sells only a narrow, highly targeted array of 6,500 products — a small selection compared to the 37,000 items found at most grocery stores.

In memory of a dedicated employee

Amazingly, nearly all the items at each Joe V's Smart Shops were personally selected by H-E-B buying expert Bud Stuckey, who tailored merchandise to the specific communities shopping at each of the four branches.

The newly-opened Acres Homes store has been dedicated to Stuckey, who passed away Nov. 27 after a battle with cancer.

Joe V’s also uses a innovative automated payment system called iCash, new European retail technology designed to improve the overall speed at checkout. Only cash, debit, and Lonestar Cards are accepted, eliminating any additional credit card costs.

"The store certainly will be a new valuable asset to the area," said Jewell Houston, who has lived in Acres Homes since 1935. "I've been impressed with the prices and the drive of the personnel. Everyone seems to having a seemingly genuine interest in our community."

Almost every staff member at the new Joe V’s is from Acres Homes, a policy the company has maintained intact since the concept launched in 2010.

“When you come to Joe V’s,” Villarreal said, “you’ll always see the smiling faces of your neighbors. That community focus is the whole idea behind the store.”