STAND BAGS UP TO GET ATTENTION, RETAILERS URGED

BARBARA MURRAY

Retailers can get more money out of the frozen-food case if they stand bags of frozen product upright as opposed to laying them stacked, or "pancaked," on top of each other, said a Birds Eye manager.

Rick Grossman, the Charlotte, N.C., district manager for the Birds Eye line of Agrilink, Green Bay, Wis., said the Bi-Lo, Food Lion and Ingles Markets chains, plus a Kroger Co. unit in Salem, Va., and one Ukrop's Super Markets store have switched display methods and are testing the results. "In my area, we're just getting people to change. Once they stand the bags up, they never go back," Grossman said. Publix Super Markets and Winn-Dixie Stores have positioned the bags upright for some time, he added.

A wider test may get under way nationally, said Pat Brooks, frozens-category manager for Save Mart Supermarkets, Modesto, Calif. Brooks, the newly elected vice chairman of the National Frozen Food Association's retail committee, said packaging has been designed to be "The Silent Salesperson," so a retailer would be amiss to lay bags down, hiding the front.

Grossman said a six-shelf set could grow to seven by standing bags of french fries, for example, since they would occupy less space. "Some customers won't work with me on this because they say their employees can't do it. I say, take two stores with the same sales and demographics, and stand the bags up in one store for six to eight weeks and let's see what happens to sales."

"We are addressing this as an industry," Brooks said. "We need to get the manufacturing community involved, and the operational side. Will we sell more packages if we stand them up? When everything is laying down, it takes five minutes to find a specific item.

"We keep looking at sales of vegetables declining. Is it because people can't find them? We have a genuine interest in how we can partner to do a better job," Brooks concluded.