LAKELAND, Fla. -- When the Florida Department of Citrus here wanted to increase consumption of citrus products, it turned to the test kitchen of Better Homes and Gardens for recipe ideas. The Citrus Department was looking for recipes that called for orange and grapefruit juice as a replacement for fatty oils and high-calorie sweets. The result : a 96-page digest-size recipe booklet, "Fit, Fresh and Fast: Flavors From Florida," which is hitting the magazine racks of 20,000 supermarkets this month. Special displays of corrugated cardboard will hold the booklet in 4,500 stores. Priced at $2.99 with $3 worth of coupons for Florida citrus, the booklet has a print run of 450,000.
Participating chains include A&P, Albertson's, Bruno's, Food Lion, Kroger, Safeway, Nash Finch, Publix and Winn-Dixie.
The next stage of the program involves 10 million copies of an 8-page version of the booklet that will be bound into Meredith Corp.'s Better Homes and Gardens and Country America, with an additional 5 million copies bound into other magazines. Another 5 million copies will be given away free with purchases in-store near the fruit or Florida section.
In May, 2,500 mini-billboards with a tear-off recipe coupon will go up in Class A supermarkets nationally. The recipe booklet will then be produced in hard cover, and plans are to sell 25,000 copies through Meredith book clubs and retail stores.
