FARM BOY SOWING FOR A FRESH SALES HARVEST

RALPH RAIOLA

CORNWALL, Ontario -- Farm Boy Fresh Market, an independent operator based here, is reaching for a piece of market share with a large, powerful produce format that owners Normand, Daniel and Jean-Louis Bellemare claim is the freshest around.

"First and foremost at Farm Boy, we are produce," said Daniel Bellemare, Farm Boy's director of human services.

"We like to call ourselves a fresh market as opposed to a grocery store, because we're offering groceries as a complement to the fresh foods. And farm fresh produce will always be our main focus at Farm Boy."

Farm Boy's philosophy is to "offer the very best in fresh market products at the best possible prices, while providing a fun shopping experience for all," Bellemare said.

While the largest Farm Boy stores are about 18,000 square feet, the produce departments are typically large in all four stores, with none under 4,500 square feet.

Their fourth and newest store, scheduled to open early this month in Hillside, Ontario, devotes more than 50% of its selling space to the produce department.

Placing such a great emphasis on a specific food group is an ideology the Bellemare brothers call "niche marketing," and is what they believe sets them apart from larger chains.

"These new stores are in direct response to increased demand for Farm Boy's unique approach to food retailing," Bellemare said. "[Consumers] are looking for fresher produce, greater selection and better customer service. People are paying more attention to what they are eating and living healthier lifestyles."

The stores stock a full line of produce. "We carry in excess of 225 items at all times, year-round," Bellemare said.

The independent takes pains to procure fresh products and distribute them to the stores quickly, he noted.

A team of three buyers makes daily visits to the United Fruit and Produce Terminal in Montreal, to select that day's stock of fruits and vegetables. "It is shipped to our stores and stocked on the shelves in a matter of hours."

The retailer also practices micromarketing, carrying items at particular stores to satisfy a particular demographic, which Bellemare said is one of the primary reasons for their stores' successes.

"At our Ottawa store, we have a very high Italian population," Bellemare said by way of example. "We carry specialty items, or [greater supplies] of items like eggplant, that wouldn't be as popular in a rural area."

To cater to a high Greek population in one area, the store has "special olive displays" where shoppers can get 1- and 2-pound containers of specialty olives, he added.

And to meet consumer demand, Farm Boy is now carrying a supply of prepared salads processed by some of the larger U.S. manufacturers.

"They're really taking off in the States, and they're catching on up here," said Bellemare.

Farm Boy also does product demos every weekend, and uses a variety of promotions at each store so that shoppers are introduced to new products, such as exotic produce, he said.

The stores have pineapple-cutting machines and do back-room slicing and dicing to offer shoppers fresh-cut choices.

Farm Boy also works with companies such as Dole, and organizations like the Washington State Apple Commission during demos and sampling.

To liven up the shopping experience, animated characters can be found throughout the store, Bellemare said, including Mikey the Monkey "doing flips" to attract attention to the banana displays.

The next project for Farm Boy is a 15,000-square-foot store in Kanata, Ontario, which will have a produce department that measures about 6,000 square feet, Bellemare said.

The retailer plans to open four additional Farm Boy units in 1998, and has eight new stores in its sights for 1999.