FROZEN FOOD GROUP SETS STUDENT-TARGETED PLAN

BOB BAUER

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The continued success of National Frozen Food Month has helped bring about another industrywide frozen food program, this one geared toward students.

H.V. "Skip" Shaw Jr., executive vice president of the National Frozen Food Association here, said the education event, Cool Food, will take place for the first time in October 1995. The promotion will be done with Scholastic, the largest publisher of books and magazines for children.

The program, targeted toward students in middle schools, will consist of classroom lessons and homework.

"We want to get the message across to them while they're young about the benefits and convenience of frozen food," Shaw said. "We have to get the message to the teachers, who will pass it along to the students, who will hopefully pass it along to their parents.

"We're looking forward to working with Scholastic because their circulation is paid," Shaw said. "The teachers are paying to get this information, which means there's a better chance they'll use it."

The program will reach 65,000 teachers, 2 million students and more than 3 million parents, Shaw said.

"Some of the local associations already do programs with schools during National Frozen Food Month," he added. "So this will create another great opportunity to do coloring contests and things like that. They can do something like award computers to the winning schools."

He added NFFA plans to work with the food service areas of the schools as well. "They cooperate with us during Frozen Food Month. I don't see any reason why they won't do so here."

Shaw said NFFA members will be encouraged to run sales in conjunction with the month-long promotion. The new event, teamed with National Frozen Food Month in March, will give retailers two month-long promotions each year.