FROZEN AND FRESH MEAL IDEAS COMBINED IN MEIJER CAMPAIGN

RUSSELL REDMAN

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Tapping into a rising demand for convenience, Meijer Inc. here jointly promoted frozen dinners and entrees with fresh-prepared entrees and side dishes as quick meal solutions.

In a circular earlier this month, the supermarket chain ran a full-page ad showing a Banquet fried-chicken dinner and a Stouffer's lasagna entree from the frozens section with rotisserie chicken from its deli and baked beans and salad from its soup and salad bar.

Pictured at the bottom of the ad were a variety of frozen meals, including Stouffer's HomeStyle dinners and Lean Cuisine Lunch Express entrees, Banquet Homestyle Menu dinners and chicken breast tenders, Meijer chicken nuggets and popcorn shrimp, Green Giant Harvest Burgers, a Tyson chicken fajita entree and SeaPak fried clam strips. At the top of the ad, it said, "Nobody has a greater variety of meals in ten minutes or less." It then showed cuckoo clocks serving out frozen and fresh meals, listing the estimated time it takes to prepare each one: the Banquet fried chicken, eight minutes; the Stouffer's lasagna, six minutes; the Meijer rotisserie chicken, three minutes, and the Meijer baked beans and salad, two minutes. Amid the meals, it said, "Have dinner ready before your family goes cuckoo."

Prices were only listed for the rotisserie chicken, baked beans and salad.

A Meijer spokesman declined to comment on the ad.

According to an area observer, promoting frozen food as convenient is not new for Meijer. However, he said, the ad may signal a more aggressive strategy by Meijer in targeting time-starved shoppers, with frozen and fresh-prepared foods as the cornerstone.

"I think they are leaning toward it," he explained. "They know that the way the industry is going, everybody is looking for a fast meal. And I really think they're going to start looking at tying in their frozen and deli meals because it's the same type of shopper.

"They're looking at the person that's buying something quickly -- walking into the store and maybe just shopping for one meal at a time and taking it home and eating it then. So there's some tie-in there, and that's why they're trying to do something like this."

Another local observer, though, noted that the ad may be an attempt at showcasing ready-to-go deli meals by tying them in with frozen dinners, a traditional supermarket offering. "I'm not sure if they're promoting the fresh [meal] more than the frozen, and they just want people to know that they can buy it fresh also," he said.

No matter what the ad's focus, Meijer has effectively appealed to the convenience-hungry customer, the first observer said.

"They think it's the same shopper," he explained. "So you really want to combine [the categories] and make the ad toward the same person. And if they're buying both items, hopefully they're going to walk from one section over to the other and shop both sections."