Kroger to Launch Chainwide Grains Promotion

DAVID ORGEL

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Kroger Co. later this month will unveil a chainwide promotion for a new Grain Foods Foundation (GFF) initiative that aims to benefit the nation's food banks.

The initiative was formally launched here last week during the American Bakers Association Convention. Another partner in the program is Food Network host Ted Allen.

The program encourages consumers to create online “bread art” to help support Feeding America, a leading domestic hunger relief organization. The GFF will donate $1 to Feeding America for each piece of art created, up to $50,000, said Kristin Lamas Patterson, vice president and account director at Mullen, a public relations agency working on the program for GFF.

Consumers can access the Bread Art Project at gowiththegrain.org, where they can use a digital slice of bread as an online canvas or upload their own art.

Kroger will promote the effort in some 2,500 supermarkets with floor decals placed in its commercial bread aisles from mid-April to mid-May, Patterson said.

A Kroger executive involved in the effort was not immediately available for comment.

The Kroger decal shows a sample of the online art and reads: “Create your own bread art and the Grain Foods Foundation will make a donation to Feeding America.”

Kroger has a history of working with GFF on similar promotions, including those geared to healthy sandwiches, healthy babies, and saving money by brown-bagging lunch.

The GFF promotes the nutritional role of grain-based foods and recently unveiled the slogan “Go With The Grain.” Patterson and GFF President Judi Adams outlined some of the programs at the ABA meeting.

Feeding America has experienced a 30% rise in demand for its food banks nationwide in the face of this harsh recession, according to GFF.

GFF is spreading the word about its latest initiative online. The Bread Art Project can be found on Facebook, a site that has a large share of the project's target audience: Generation X moms between ages 25 and 45, Patterson said. The Facebook fan page aims to attract more participants and enable users to share their art.

The project is also promoted through Twitter, a strategy that helps it spread the word through bloggers and other non-traditional outlets.

“This is where bloggers and journalists are,” Patterson said. “We see an immediate conversion to coverage by using Twitter.”

The GFF has also gained exposure through online public service ads with AOL and MSN, a strategy that led to some 57,000 GFF site visits in one day.

The participation of Ted Allen brings a celebrity component to the program. Allen was scheduled to help deliver loaves of bread to hunger relief organizations, a move targeted at boosting publicity for the effort.