GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- In a continuing effort to call attention to its own chef-made items, D&W Food Centers here is spotlighting its soups this winter and has made some changes in the category.
The retailer has dropped a line of soups it carried sourced from outside, and now only sells its own line in the deli. "I think it was confusing to the customer," said Michael Eardley, director of food service for the 24-unit chain. "We wanted to make it clear that our homemade soups are homemade and to do that simply, we just dropped the other line and expanded our own."
The newest addition is chicken noodle, which was launched last month. The line also includes broccoli-cheddar, steak and vegetable, and vegetarian chili. They are being featured in the retailer's ad several times this winter, with a list of all four flavors in the ad's prepared food section under the headline, "Made By Our Own Chefs! Fresh, No Preservatives Added."
"We'll put our soups in our ad several times during the cold weather months," said Eardley, adding that having a line-up of four varieties in the ad calls more attention to the products than the single soup flavor the ads used to highlight.
All four soups are now offered daily. With an everyday price of $2.39 a pound, the soups will be put on special at $1.79 or $1.89 several times this winter, Eardley said. "We priced the varieties all the same in order to make life easier for the customer," he said.
The soups are offered hot, cold, service and self-service, and are packed in deli cups. In addition to being given attention in ads, they're being touted on in-store signs, and frequent demos are planned to introduce them to customers.
"We're slowly building sales of all our prepared foods and this is part of it. Promoting different prepared items all the time is the way to do it. We've separated products in our deli ad so that those made by us come under the heading of D&W Kitchen & Deli," Eardley said.
"But by far, the people behind the counter are the most important element," he added, noting that D&W gives its staffers specific pointers in suggestive selling.
