CASING THE PRODUCT

Adam Blair

As the number and type of products offered in supermarkets expand, especially in the fast-growing home-meal replacement category, retailers are using cases designed to showcase numerous products together, creating a bountiful harvest effect.

There's also a move to increase the entertainment value for customers, especially in produce and meal-service areas. Displays and fixtures are being used to help create a specific ambiance, such as down-home comfort or hip and trendy, in "store-within-a-store" areas.

Balanced with the desire to increase sales by presenting a full menu of options to shoppers are the practical limitations of store space, the need for energy-efficient fixtures and the desire to limit the labor involved in stocking and maintaining cases.

"A lot of our decisions about cases are driven by the concept of 'menu-ing' -- letting customers know exactly what you have," said Brian Rahn, store engineer at Associated Wholesale Grocers, Kansas City, Kan. In addition, "a lot of people are doing cross merchandising of items," he said.

In terms of fixturing, this means using three-deck cases for products such as sandwiches and pasta, said Rahn. Associated has implemented a specific team to analyze category management data to determine which products make the most sense to stock together.

"The most cost-effective way to get more variety and pack-out from smaller case-length lineups is to think vertically," said Pete Conklin, design and decor manager for Bozzuto's, Cheshire, Conn. "Three-, four- or even five-deck cases for produce and meat lineups are available and have proved themselves to the industry."

Jay Rockeman, director of new store operations at Wild Oats Markets, Boulder, Colo., said that food-service and self-service areas are key sections where supermarkets are experimenting with creative displays and presentations of product.

"We focus more on ambiance in the food-service areas of the store, where it's more full-service to the customer, and where presentation of perishable food helps sell the product," said Rockeman. "People are trying a lot of different things -- for example, raising deli cases off the floor so they are closer to eye level," he noted.

Wild Oats also uses multilevel decks to group and present varieties of ethnic foods. "Customers can really choose, in one location, from whatever part of the country they are looking to eat from," he added. "We also do separate areas for a Tuscan grill, a Caesar-salad station, sandwich and panini stations. This does require different types of equipment, but it also makes it more entertaining for the customer."

"Straight glass service-case islands are tremendous at displaying products," said Bozzuto's Conklin. "I anticipate they will become a very popular item."

While these and other types of "customer-friendly" cases can help increase sales in HMR and food-service departments, they also require a higher level of maintenance, both in terms of labor to keep them stocked and energy to keep products at the proper temperature.

"That's demanding on both [case] suppliers and retailers," said Wild Oats' Rockeman. "More refrigeration in the store is costly in terms of both equipment and energy costs, and prepared foods themselves are more costly to generate. It does require more of us, but it's also our specialty, so it's worth the investment."

More stringent requirements for food-preparation safety, notably new Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point and product-temperature guidelines, may encourage retailers to invest in a variety of new refrigerated equipment, according to Bozzuto's Conklin.

"This will greatly affect how a retailer merchandises HMR products," he said. "It will also affect preparation of HMR product, and we expect that blast chillers will be required by anyone marketing store-prepared HMRs."

More flexible types of cases and displays can bring benefits all over the store, not just in HMR areas, according to consultant Milton Merl, president of Milton Merl & Associates, New York. "Most fixturing forces a retailer to provide a minimum amount of space for all products," whether they are fast- or slow-moving, said Merl. "There's generally not enough space for faster-moving items."

"Vendor packs are too big," said Glenn Habern, chief information officer at H.E. Butt Grocery Co., San Antonio, in a presentation at the MarkeTechnics conference last month describing extensive research by the retailer on out-of-stock items. "Half of the items in the store don't sell as much as one pack per month."

One solution to this problem would be increased use of store-ready pallets and prebuilt displays for promotional items, according to Merl. "This keeps promotional volume separate from the store's regular-product volume, and it can be managed in secondary locations," he said.

Merl acknowledged that most stores are not flexible enough to handle a large number of prebuilt displays. But concepts such as fold-down shelving "would allow the shelves to be selling spaces one day, and then provide space for prebuilt modules another."

Not all creative product presentations require large investments in new equipment. In some cases, props can create a bit of theater.

"In one store in Orem, Utah, we used a 1929 Model A pickup truck and converted the bed into slant racks to hold produce," said Dale Stebbins, design department manager at Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City. "It was an actual, full-sized truck -- we got it from a prop person from the movies and pulled out the engine and other mechanical parts."

The retailer loads the truck's bed with a variety of seasonal items, said Stebbins, such as pumpkins or strawberries. "The image we were going for is it's so fresh it literally came off the truck," he said. Around the truck, the retailer uses flat tables with galvanized tops, which add to the fresh-from-the-farm atmosphere.

"We're providing a kind of entertainment," said Stebbins. "And most independent retailers want their store to look different," so cases and other design elements need to be somewhat customized.