When Halloween rolls around, monsters of all ages seek out something sweet. Supermarket bakeries can't go wrong with tried-and-true party favorites, including cupcakes, cookies and sheet cakes featuring jack-o'-lanterns and other familiar Halloween images.
Regarded as the start of the important fall and winter holiday season, Halloween typically delivers double-digit sales increases to in-store bakeries. And, with home entertaining apparently on an upswing, Halloween this year is likely to give bakery sales a bigger boost than last year, retailers told SN.
"It's my honest-to-God feeling we didn't have as good a Halloween season [last year] because of Sept. 11," said Darrell Mickschl, bakery manager at the 75,000-square-foot Cub Foods store in suburban Woodbury, Minn., operated by Edina, Minn.-based Jerry's Enterprises. "I think it'll be better than last year."
The holiday typically gives the bakery a 10% to 15% sales lift, Mickschl said.
To attract shoppers planning holiday parties, Cub sells jack-o'-lantern cutout cookies, covered with chocolate and orange icing, as well as un-iced varieties, , single-layer round cakes with jack-o-lanterns decorating the top, decorated sheet cakes, cupcakes and mini-cupcakes, which are one-third the size of regular cupcakes. The decorations include the traditional ghosts and spiders, as well as newer eyeballs and brains, made from gummi candies. They were introduced last year.
"They're weird-looking but they do represent Halloween," Mickschl said.
Orange and brown merchandise, and Halloween images, set the scene and make a holiday statement. Sourdough breads, colored orange and shaped like pumpkins, as well as orange and brown braided breads "make the whole department look good," the baker
said. Pumpkin displays and ubiquitous mini-pumpkins with painted faces create a festive atmosphere in the adjacent deli, and that helps draw traffic to the bakery, too.
"Our deli does such a phenomenal job of decorating for Halloween," Mickschl said.
The breads are displayed in the bakery and deli. A table covered with Halloween baked goods is set up in front of the latter. Department associates use the made-from-scratch braided breads for party subs, and receive orders for orange buns and Halloween breads.
Merchandise is displayed in the front of the store as well. Keeping those tables generously stocked with merchandise is crucial, and it also doesn't hurt to start showing off products early, said Mickschl. In fact, Cub associates creates holiday displays the early part of October.
"If you don't show [consumers] what you have, you don't get special orders for things," he said. "You want vast quantities of whatever you're making. Don't run out of product and don't be afraid to have some left over," he said. "There's nothing worse than displays for holidays that look skimpy."
Halloween wouldn't be Halloween without cupcakes. A perennial favorite with kids, cupcakes fly off the shelves. Cub sells the mini-cupcakes for $3.99 a dozen, and six-pack clamshell packages of cupcakes, also for $3.99.
"We sell 700 packages of cupcakes, the six-packs, in one week in one store," Mickschl said. "The mini-cupcakes rock out of here."
Elaborately decorated cupcakes are also hot sellers for Bristol Farms, the upscale El Segundo, Calif.-based chain of 11 stores. Retailing for $2.39 each, the chocolate and white cupcakes are decorated with piped-on ghosts and other characters. A thaw-and-sell product, the cupcakes are popular items for Halloween parties, said Pete Hejny, senior director of food service and bakery.
"It's the biggest cupcake holiday of the year for us," Hejny said, noting the chain sells thousands in October.
As bakery holidays go, Halloween is a biggie, boosting sales 25% to 30%, Hejny said. This year should be stronger than last year, he said, based on increased business generated by other, recent holidays.
"I expect a big Halloween," he said. "It's becoming more of an adult holiday than anything."
Bristol Farms' made-from-scratch pumpkin cake, a single-layer, iced square cake, available in various sizes, is sold from a service case and on the floor.
Other goodies include a huge assortment of cookies, including spritzes, kolacky, filled and decorated varieties. They're sold packaged and individually. Cookies are massed on platters, and wrapped with ribbons, looking suitable for gift giving. Platters are displayed on tables at the front of the stores, and cookies are sold from service cases in the ISBs. Bristol Farms does not sell cakes decorated with plastic decorations. The cake decorators on staff pipe on witches, ghosts, jack-o'-lanterns, even figures with bloodshot eyes. Those items are sold out of service cases. The stores will roll out some new cake designs this year, Hejny said.
At Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle, holiday items are displayed in the front of the store in addition to the bakery. Top sellers include decorated theme cakes, cupcakes, orange-colored cookies and "anything that people can put in packages or bags for trick-or-treaters," said spokesman Rob Borella. The company plans to introduce some new decorated cakes this year, he added.
"We're expecting it to be a good year," he said.
Deep in the heart of Texas, house-proud consumers increasingly use Halloween as an excuse to deck out their homes, much like they do for Christmas.
"I know Halloween in general has become a larger holiday in the last five years," said Michael Cox, general manager of H.E. Butt Grocery's Central Market in Plano, a suburb of Dallas. "You see people decorating their homes. It spurs parties. It drives business in catering and in other parts of the store."
At his 75,000-square-foot store, the European-style bakery's winning holiday formula starts with a 14-inch platter. It holds something for everyone -- a cake, ringed with 10 cupcakes, and designer-iced sugar cookies. The decorations on the sweets and the presentation are created with the holiday in mind, and the final product looks worthy of a food magazine spread.
