DLM Connects Emotionally With Shoppers

JULIE GALLAGHER

LAS VEGAS — Dorothy Lane Market is romancing shoppers with upscale foods appropriate for everyday occasions, Calvin Mayne, vice president of the Dayton, Ohio-based independent said here Wednesday at the Food Marketing Institute Show 2010.

“We’re fanatic about food, but not in a snobby way,” he said.

Mayne provided as example how a clerk might introduce DLM’s most expensive deli item— Jamón Ibérico, a salt-cured Spanish ham retailing for $100 per pound—to a shopper. After inviting them to smell the aroma of a freshly cut slice, and taste its salty and sweet flavors, an associate might suggest a practical way to enjoy the ham at home.

“It’s $100 a pound, so you have sticker shock right now, but that one slice costs only $1,” said Mayne. “Take that slice and put it on a piece of toast and put an egg on top. You won’t even need Hollandaise [sauce] and it will be the best Eggs Benedict you’ve ever had in your life.”

For the price it costs to super size a meal at a fast food restaurant, you can have one of the greatest eating experiences in the world, he added.

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