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PACKAGE DEALS

Blue ketchup. Green applesauce in a 3-ounce container. Purple mustard.While none of the above may sound very appetizing to most adults, these and many more products packaged in small containers are being designed to grab the attention of youngsters as they head back to school.Some are even designed based on the assumption that children will be packing their own lunches, so if a product is packaged

Blue ketchup. Green applesauce in a 3-ounce container. Purple mustard.

While none of the above may sound very appetizing to most adults, these and many more products packaged in small containers are being designed to grab the attention of youngsters as they head back to school.

Some are even designed based on the assumption that children will be packing their own lunches, so if a product is packaged in a tube, no utensils are needed for preparation or consumption. Meanwhile, retailers are preparing strategies to grab the attention of both the parents who do the shopping and the children who consume the product.

"We will use walk-around displays for our shelf-stable products, like grab-and-go cereal bowls," said Charles Jones, senior buyer for Scolari's Food and Drug Co., Sparks, Nev. "For refrigerated items, we will use a large coffin case for items such as cheese sticks that are not shelf stable.

"There are containers that keep lunches cold, but parents usually prefer shelf-stable products. That way if a child leaves the lunch box in the sun, it doesn't matter and they don't have to remember to bring a frozen container back home.

"Believe it or not, we combine a back-to-school candy promotion with the same candies we use for Halloween," Jones added. "There is not much time from one to the other, because as soon as school opens, we put up the Halloween displays, so non-chocolate candies go in those displays."

Package size and bright colors are what attract the eyes of children, while nutrition facts are the important ingredient for parents, particularly since there has been so much recent publicity about obesity in children, industry experts told SN.

"A lot of companies are looking at pack sizes that are more palatable to kids. Kids would rather eat three small things than one larger one," said Mark Baum, executive vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, Washington. "They feel like that is more fun and interesting and the more the retailer takes advantage of that fact, the better off he or she will be.

"There is a time demand for parents who have to prepare these meals, but the real challenge for retailers is to make sure the meal occasion for lunch at school is convenient and that it promotes good health and nutrition at the same time. Kids need a good mix between breads and cereals, milk and milk by-products, and fruits and vegetables.

"To achieve that goal, a lot of retailers give out recipes for moms to dress up vegetables, or manufacturers package fruits in 2- or 3-ounce containers," Baum continued. "What is going to happen is that packaging technology is going to continue getting better all the time.

"There will be more ways to get more food products into easy-to-use, portable, anytime/anywhere-style dispensers. There is no question that some of the greatest innovations of the past few years have been in packaging and that will continue into the future."

Some of the products already on the market that meet these needs include Campbell's Soup at Hand, snacks packaged like crackers in small portable boxes, handheld cereals and peanut butter in tubes.

Items expected to be hot this fall for kids' lunches include ketchup in a variety of colors to help spice up healthy-for-you foods, organic yogurt in unusual colors or with flavor "rocks" to sprinkle on top, or applesauce in individual serving sizes that come in colors that are distinctly non-apple in nature.

Part of the trick for selling healthy items is to package them in a way that kids will actually eat them, even out of sight of the parent, noted Kimberly A. Kirchherr, corporate dietitian for Jewel-Osco, Chicago.

"Snacks for kids now come in many different shapes, sizes and flavors," said Kirchherr. "Healthy varieties are masked by creative packaging, interactive elements and bold flavors. For instance, you can find pudding or peanut butter in a tube. In addition, kids are encouraged to have fun with interactive snacks that let them create their own sandwiches, or adding color-changing yogurts, and portable packaging for squeezing food directly into your mouth instead of using silverware.

"Another trend we're seeing is an increasing popularity of organic among parents who want to give their children healthier food options. Foods that are grown naturally or that provide added nutritional value such as crackers with added calcium are being picked off the shelves by parents."

Manufacturers are doing their best to stay out in front of the changes that retailers report customers want. Dole now has four-packs of small fruit bowls with completely new packaging that has pictures of actual fruit instead of drawings of fruit that make the packages pop off the shelves. Mandarin oranges and peaches as well as a line of pears have been added to the fruit cups.

Kool-Aid has used its well-known brand name that dates back decades to promote Jammers, a new aseptic packaged drink designed for kids but playing on parents' memory of Kool-Aid from their childhoods.

"Convenience is the No. 1 driver for Kool-Aid Jammers," said Valerie Skala, vice president of analytic product management at Information Resources Inc., Chicago. Aseptic juice drinks as a category increased sales by 10% a year for the past two years, driven by the second baby boom, Skala said.

General Mills has a fruit juice snack called Dragon Tales packaged with pictures of characters from the television series for children; fruit roll-ups are now marketed in more new flavors including electric blue raspberry; and Fruit Gushers have a liquid inside a fruit snack, noted Aimee Feldman, public relations manager for General Mills. There is even a 3-foot-long fruit roll that is packaged to fit in lunch boxes and comes in a new green apple wave flavor to capitalize on the current craze for sour tastes, she said.

General Mills works with retailers to help display the new products, she said.

All of the new products are combined with back-to-school, non-grocery supplies including backpacks, pencils, paper, rulers and anything else the supermarket carries in a freestanding display placed in the very front of stores in the Brookshire Grocery Co. stores, said Jerry Moore, general merchandise category manager, Tyler, Texas.

"The cross-merchandising displays are designed so that parents can easily pick up all the beginning-of-the year school supplies along with ingredients for the first few lunches in one location at the front of the store," Moore said.

Phill Schneider, vice president of center store for Big Y Foods, based in Springfield, Mass., explained, "Suggestive signage is the key to promoting back to school items." Big Y merchandises the entire store around back-to-school themes using endcaps, wings and vendor shippers.

"This year, fruit snack bars, cereal bars and granola bars, as well as individual fruit items, are expected to be big sellers," he said. "In addition, there are snack pack puddings that fit in back packs and multi-pack single serve items of all types continue to grow across the entire store."

The ever-popular complete lunches are stacked with snacks and chips, as well as fruits and candies at Brookshire, which has 153 stores in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. Displays are being built by mid-July in some stores because of the varying times school starts in different areas of the South, he added.

In areas where there is an upscale clientele, pretzel dips and mustard glazes are popular, said Trip Straub, vice president, general buyer and an owner of Straub's Markets in Clayton, Mo. Raspberry is the new "in" flavor for kids and even the upscale brands have versions marketed to kids, such as the specialty line chips made by Jack and Ollie's Crisps, which are sold in Straub's.

Many of the packages marketed to children use cartoon characters recognizable even to very young children, said Leah McGrath, dietitian for Ingles Markets based in Black Mountain, N.C., with stores in North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

"Lunchables by Oscar Meyer and Lunch Makers by Armour have been popular for a while, each with a beverage, a main dish and a candy," McGrath said, adding that she would like to see more pure fruit juice in the drinks.

"Some items are packed in small quantities for adults but they have lower sodium and fat levels than the children's products and some of those are better for the kids than the products made for them," McGrath advised.

"Del Monte and Dole have small containers of fruit that are good for both children and adults. Sticks of peanut butter have good levels of vitamins and kids can make their own lunches without using a knife," she said.

Packages that have licensed characters such as Mickey Mouse are frequently the most popular, according to Kim Feil, chief executive officer of Mosaic InfoForce in-store audits, and snack and beverage practice leader for IRI.

"If I were a retailer, I would look at mixing and matching displays and think in terms of a broad range of day parts, from morning to lunch to back at home or to the soccer game, for the best use of retail space," Feil said.