Skip navigation
New Expo Format a Success for United

New Expo Format a Success for United

LUBBOCK, Texas — United Supermarkets here recently hosted its fifth and final consumer expo of the 2011-2012 fiscal year. And, company representatives said that the new slate of expos including a spring Bridal Expo, an International Food Expo, a Best of Texas Expo, an Entertaining and Celebration Expo and a Health and Wellness Expo has enjoyed a great response from customers, and will all be held again

LUBBOCK, Texas — United Supermarkets here recently hosted its fifth and final consumer expo of the 2011-2012 fiscal year. And, company representatives said that the new slate of expos — including a spring Bridal Expo, an International Food Expo, a Best of Texas Expo, an Entertaining and Celebration Expo and a Health and Wellness Expo — has enjoyed a great response from customers, and will all be held again in the coming year.

“We dabbled in the expo business a few years ago, and we had really gotten out of them until this [fiscal] year,” Eddie Owens, director of corporate communications for United, told SN. “We've really reorganized and re-orchestrated what we were trying to accomplish.”

The earlier expos, Owens explained, were less focused, and didn't prove to be successful in terms of return on investment. By contrast, the new series of events, which are held at each of the company's upscale Market Street banner locations, use a single theme to tie together activities and product demos throughout the store.

“I think the big thing we've learned is that each [expo] has been very targeted with its focus,” Owens said. “I think before, we really did not have a single theme that we adequately carried out throughout the stores. But, with this new format and new approach that we have taken this year — it clearly has a singular focus for each expo that every department in the store can participate in.”

Most recently, the company's 10 Market Street locations hosted the “Healthy New You Expo” on Jan. 15-16. Every department of the store participated, showcasing products and services with a health or nutrition focus. Seafood departments offered samples of the company's Full Circle brand fish filets. Or, shoppers could try organic chicken breasts in the meat department, or organic salads in produce. The prepared food areas offered a wide selection of items, ranging from acai berry smoothies, turkey meatloaf and classic chicken salads, to signature hummus, spinach and artichoke vegetarian roll-ups.

Even staff in the floral and wine departments got involved, spotlighting spring flowers and foliage, and discussing the health benefits of red wine.

Owens said the Healthy New You Expo was timed to tie in with their customers' New Year's resolutions, which often have a focus on health.

“Those always include getting your finances in order and getting your health in order,” he noted. “We can't do much about the finances beyond offering customers great value, but we certainly want to spotlight the things we can do from a food perspective to make those New Years [health and wellness] resolutions a little easier to be successful with.”

The companywide rollout of the NuVal nutritional scoring system this month was also a big focus of the two-day event. Developed by a team of medical and nutrition experts led by Dr. David Katz at the Yale Prevention Research Center, the NuVal scoring system was established as a joint venture between Topco Associates and the Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn. The system uses an array of nutritional characteristics to rate different foods on a scale of 1 to 100, offering shoppers an easy way to select the healthiest foods, and to distinguish between similar foods when trying to make a “better-for-you” selection.

United last year became the first supermarket chain in Texas to introduce NuVal, but it limited the rollout to its 14 specialty format stores — Market Street and Amigos. Now that all the kinks are worked out, Owens said the company is excited to introduce the system to all of the company's stores.

“We just launched it companywide at the first of the year, and this expo is really going to have a NuVal focus,” he said.

At each of the 10 Healthy New You Expo locations, 1,000 guests who went through a brief NuVal education program received a free book — “Eat Well, Live Well,” authored by United's own corporate dietitian, Dr. Tyra Carter.

Shopper feedback on the NuVal system was “extremely positive” at the company's Market Street locations last year, Owens said. The company is hoping for a similar reaction as the rollout expands.

“We did not roll it out companywide [initially] because we had some technical issues that we had to overcome. The intent from day one was always to have it as a companywide program. It offers too many positive aspects as far as providing health and wellness and nutrition information for our guests that it would be a disservice if we did not make it available in all of our stores.”

And, United is already gearing up for another round of expos for 2011.

“We've got the exact same lineup scheduled for 2011 and 2012,” Owens said. “We're excited that we've enjoyed success with them this year and will be able to do them a second time around.”

TAGS: Marketing