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'GREETING CARD' CAKES SELL SWEETLY

GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- Buttrey Food & Drug Stores here and Eagle Food Centers, Milan, Ill., have both had success with a small cake that's said to double as a greeting card.The 4-inch, double-layer trademarked Gift Cakes are produced in-store, packed in a special, miniature cake box and then customized by affixing a colorful write-on label that has graphics appropriate to the corresponding holiday

GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- Buttrey Food & Drug Stores here and Eagle Food Centers, Milan, Ill., have both had success with a small cake that's said to double as a greeting card.

The 4-inch, double-layer trademarked Gift Cakes are produced in-store, packed in a special, miniature cake box and then customized by affixing a colorful write-on label that has graphics appropriate to the corresponding holiday or special occasion.

"It's a greeting cake, like a greeting card. We retailed ours for $3.99 for Mother's Day," said a source at store level at Buttrey. While officials at the 42-unit Buttrey here and at Eagle Food Centers, which has 70 some units, could not be reached for comment, store-level sources told SN the cakes are a hit for holidays such as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. One unit of Buttrey here sold 100 of the gift cakes for Mother's Day.

A source at Eagle Food Centers said its bakeries sold as many as they put on display on Mother's Day, but he added that the stores had done a better job Valentine's Day with the product.

At Eagle, the cakes were displayed on a table, but at Buttrey, the cakes were mass-displayed with decorated, single-layer cakes on stair-step shelves in an in-aisle case across from the service bakery counter.

"We put at least a dozen to 18 out at a time, along with decorated single-layer cakes and cross-merchandised them with floral products for both Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. And my guess is that they didn't cut into other bakery sales," the Buttrey source told SN. "It makes sense that they would be added sales because I think they're very much an impulse buy. It's a personal cake, the type of thing you would pick up in addition to whatever else you're buying. They look cute because they're so small and they're in a small box with a window," the source said.

The patented Gift Cake Concept was developed by Weller Co., North Hollywood, Calif. The boxes, stickers and directions on how to decorate the minicakes with minimum effort are supplied by Weller. Four-inch, round layers can be baked in-store in pans supplied by Weller or they can be sourced from suppliers, said Ed Weller, president of Weller Co.

Weller said Gift Cakes are currently offered by 30 supermarket chains and some independent units.