HOLIDAYS SEEN KEEPING BAKERIES' SUMMER SALES HOT

RALPH RAIOLA

With summertime at hand, retailers interviewed by SN said they are relying on holidays in planning their bakery merchandising strategies to keep sales from wilting.

Holidays such as Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day, as well as graduations and Mother's Day and Father's Day, mean consumers are having parties, said retailers in spot interviews with SN.

In some cases, the celebratory events can mitigate against the potential for everyday sales drops in the hottest weather.

Douglas Dick, director of food service for the 23-unit Rice Epicurean Markets, Houston, said he has hopes of reeling in summertime picnickers with new programs, like the department's baked focaccia breads and deep dish apple and peach pies.

"There are a lot of lakes in Houston, and a lot of people go boating," he said. "They can pick up pies and cakes, along with their chicken and ribs, and take a complete meal with them."

Rice began baking its variety of focaccia breads a couple of months ago, and Dick said he hopes his shoppers will begin to think of them as quick-meal replacements during the warmer months.

"The focaccia bread is good for a picnic," he said. "It's almost a meal in itself."

He said the No. 1 seller of the focaccia breads so far has been a loaf that features three different types of bell peppers. Rice also offers cucumber, red onion and spinach focaccia.

Things start heating up a little earlier in Texas than in most parts of the country, which is why the best times of the season are at the very beginning and the very end of the summer, he added.

While the everyday in-store bakery sales typically cool down during the summer, Dick said that the holidays warm up the bakery ovens a bit, although he declined to offer any hard numbers about summer holidays.

For Rice, the biggest summertime sales come about Memorial Day and Labor Day.

"Memorial Day is the beginning of the summer," he said. "The kids are out of school and it's not too hot.

"Fourth of July is a hot weekend. The summertime is tough in Houston because it gets so hot, and things slow down," he said. "People go to their summer homes.

"Labor Day is a good one because people are back," he added.

During the slow summer months, Rice finds other ways of keeping bakery sales above average. "We really concentrate on our corporate catering, and that really fills the void," Dick said.

In other parts of the country, however, the season is more favorable. Jill Chay, assistant manager of bakery/deli at a Piggly Wiggly in Mequon, Wis., said that store typically sees bakery sales blossom during the summer season.

Two of the operator's best-known programs during the summer are the Mother's Day and Father's Day cake-decorating promotions for kids, during which children can come in and "decorate a cake for mom and dad," Chay said.

For the most part, this Piggly Wiggly unit does cake and doughnut decorating during most summertime holidays, including putting American flags and red, white and blue decorations on cakes during Memorial Day and for the Fourth of July.

During the summer, the department is usually capable of pulling in about $1,400 a day, and $2,000 a day on weekends, she added. Barb Harner, bakery director of the four-unit Steele's Markets, Fort Collins, Colo., plans to put an emphasis on the bakery components for backyard cookouts, as well as other seasonal items.

Hamburger buns, baked buns, cakes for special occasions -- including Mother's Day and Father's Day -- and Steele's own brownies all will play important roles in getting bakery sales to reach their potential, she said.

"We are starting with the promotion of a 10-inch pie, primarily apple," Harner said.

Bakery sales at Steele's have been running about 30% higher than last year, so Harner expects sales this summer to increase at least "a couple of percentage points," compared with last year. But she said it varies from week to week. "You never know what to expect," she said.

Meanwhile, graduation is big at Steele's. Steele's first-ever bakery ad using four-color pictures ran a few weeks ago, promoting several different graduation items.

Dick of Rice in Houston said he'll most likely repeat a strawberry cream pie promotion that was just finishing a successful run.

Also, he plans a cross-merchandising program with angel food cake, strawberry cream pies and strawberries in the produce department. Rice will probably cross merchandise with other departments as well, including floral to reap the benefits from special occasions. When Dick was interviewed by SN, Rice Epicurean bakeries were just wrapping up a cross promotion for Mother's Day in the chain's floral departments.

"We had cream ties, See's candies, and cakes decorated with Happy Mother's Day in the floral department," he said.

This kind of cross merchandising is important, he said, because holiday items are such an impulse buy at supermarkets. "In nine out of 10 cases, I bet the shopper had no [plans] to buy a cake."

Besides merchandising, Dick said, the main line of communicating what the department is doing is with advertisements and in its circular. This year, Rice began devoting a larger percentage to the bakery department.

"Our circular used to dedicate one page, the back page, deli/ bakery," he said. "Now we have pages two and three."