A TASTE FOR TAMPA

ROSEANNE HARPER

TAMPA, Fla. -- The major supermarket players in this sports-minded southern city on the Gulf of Mexico have beefed up their presence as they try harder to attract consumers' meals dollars.

They're driven by each other, but even more so by an ever-increasing number of restaurants, local observers said. While Tampa residents vie for a chance to see the Buccaneers battle it out in their new football stadium this fall, retailers are pushing further into the meals arena with plays designed to win the consumer's confidence.

Fired-up woks, hugely expanded displays of chilled meal components, bustling made-to-order sub sandwich stations and a blitz of image-building advertising illustrate the action.

The top contenders here are Publix Super Markets in Lakeland, Fla., and Winn-Dixie Stores in Jacksonville, Fla., which in markedly different ways are aggressively pursuing the meals business.

Kash n' Karry Food Stores -- now owned by Food Lion, Salisbury, N.C. -- and Albertson's, Boise, Idaho, are lesser forces to reckon with in the meals category, local sources said.

Publix, which declined to be interviewed for this story, holds the biggest chunk of market share here, and is out in front in meals, industry sources told SN. And while Winn-Dixie is gaining ground fast, it looks like Kash n' Karry and Albertson's have taken time out, SN's sources concurred.

"Publix is head and shoulders above all the rest when it comes to home meal replacement. They've expanded their variety tremendously and they're committed to promoting their new items. It's good follow-through," said one source.

Another source, who called Publix the undisputed meals leader, said, "They do a tremendous job with fresh foods. They're the most respected in this market for their service, cleanliness, store condition, product variety, quality, freshness -- all the good things."

Publix's chilled, prepared foods -- from potato salad to meatballs -- are made and packaged in single-serving containers and family-sized servings at a central commissary in Lakeland. While none of the immense variety of chilled entrees and salads is made in-store, an up-front, made-to-order sandwich station sends the "fresh message" loud and clear at Publix's flagship on Dale Mabry Highway at Neptune.

"That's definitely a store to see. The way they've combined good, fast service at the sub counter with most everything else in the deli being self-service. It works. The variety in self-service is great and the cases are well merchandised," said a local source familiar with the industry here.

Publix is putting into practice a whole list of things that a lot of retailers just talk about. For example, it offers a money-back guarantee on its prepared foods and a frequent-purchaser card for a free sub sandwich after customers buy a set number. And it uses professional-looking signs in-store that inform and direct customers.

Since the beginning of the year, the sprawling chain spread out over the Southeast has revved up its chilled, prepared program by nearly doubling items offered and introducing entrees such as lasagna and salisbury steak.

For years, sources said, the company has been moving an astounding quantity of its own "Quick Takes" -- prepacked, chilled salads and baked beans in 8-ounce and 16-ounce packages. Now, the entrees round out the menu.

The chain has begun devoting a large block of space in its ad circulars two or three times a month to push the new products. In a recent circular, home-style lasagna was spotlighted in 3-inch-by-4-inch block with a color photo. The ad touted a 24-ounce package of "meat or vegetable, fully cooked lasagna" for a special price of $4.99.

On a recent visit to the chain's flagship store here, SN noted one whole side of a 12-foot refrigerated island case was devoted to such items. Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy and meatloaf with tomato sauce, in 12-ounce, heat-sealed containers, were selling for $3.79 each.

Just across the aisle, another island case displayed 12 feet of prepacked salads. The display includes seven varieties of potato salad such as Greek, mustard and New York-style. More varieties of protein salads, too, such as chicken salad with tarragon and almonds, have been added to the menu.

A long dangler-style sign over the two island cases says, "What's for Dinner Tonight?" And what looked like a mobile demonstration cart stood at the end of the entrees case. A sign attached said, "Try our home-style lasagna." It could be assumed that the demonstration cart is put into use in the early evening to tempt dinner-seekers, though at the time of SN's visit, there was no activity.

Lunch business at the Publix store is brisk. SN observed the sub station had a steady line all through lunch and the customers were being moved through fast.

Four associates were assigned to the sub station counter. One was taking orders, two were assembling sandwiches and one was operating a cash register dedicated to that area.

Backlit signs and neon signs overhead at the sub station point out that the sandwiches are made from Boar's Head meats and cheeses and that the sub rolls are made in the store's bakery.

Just around the corner from the sub station, which fronts a 20-foot-by-20-foot open work area, is a 3-foot, slanted ice table with chef's salads, Greek salads and Caesar salads packaged in dome-top containers. Publix officials at the chain's Lakeland corporate headquarters declined to discuss the company's meals program, but a local observer said this store was the first Publix here to line up the fresh foods departments on one side of the store.

At Winn-Dixie's top-volume store here on West Kennedy Boulevard, a sub sandwich station had a steady stream of lunchtime customers starting as early as 11:30 a.m. A stack of ready-to-grab, huge roast beef and swiss cheese subs, for $3.99, was being replenished.

A local business owner said his warehouse employees go to that Winn-Dixie every day for subs at lunch. "They're half the price they'd pay at Subway or Blimpie's, and they tell me they're better," he said.

It is here that the chain is testing a new interactive deli ordering system aimed at capturing a bigger bite of this lunch business. According to Bill Welch, Tampa division marketing director, the program -- developed by locally based LSR Publishing Group -- specifically targets the nearly 5,000 businesses in the downtown area.

A promotional mailing sent to the businesses the week of Sept. 14 included an introductory brochure describing the program, a 50-cents-off option for orders submitted by 10:30 a.m. and a software disk encoded with the menu, which includes sandwiches, sides, beverages and party rings. Prices are automatically tallied.

Customers use the on-screen menu to make their choices, including condiments. They must print the completed orders and fax them directly to the store's deli, where the items are processed by employees before the designated pickup time specified by the customer, said Welch.

In-store shoppers will find special features at the Winn-Dixie store, like the Wok Shoppe and on-site chef Phillip Potter, who is very visible in his whites at the hot deli counter.

He talks with customers and points out that there is a huge selection of chilled meal items available in an island case just across from the service counter.

The strategy is to build the lunch business, showing off the freshness of all the made-on-site foods offered at the deli counter, and then let those customers know they can pick up something for dinner from the refrigerated island case, Potter said.

"It's working. We're beginning to see customers do that," Potter said, adding that in the evening the store's public address system is used to call customers' attention to that case.

"We do a huge lunch business here," Potter said as he pointed to a seating area that was filled by noon with people eating everything from subs to mounded-high plates of Chinese food.

"We had to add four tables recently."

Some of the items on the service menu can be found in the chilled case, but Potter stressed that the chilled fare is not taken from what's left on the hot counter. Two batches -- one for the hot counter and one for the chilled, prepacked case -- are cooked simultaneously.

"I'll stack our ribs and our Chinese food up against any in Tampa," Potter said. "We have seven chefs here at this store, some with restaurant backgrounds, and our wok chef is from China."

Commenting on the food's quality as well as the way it's merchandised, Potter said, "We're conscious of the colors of the foods and what looks good with what, but we also know the products can't just look pretty. They also have to taste pretty. That's what brings people back," he said.

A new heat-sealed packaging system, as reported in SN 8/31, has enabled the store to offer more variety in sizes of prepacked, ready-to-eat items, Potter pointed out.

Even with all the attention to self-service merchandising, a high level of service is apparent in this store, and there are many staffers offering help and samples.

One local industry source said he has seen Winn-Dixie and Publix take opposite directions in the meals business over the last couple of years.

"For instance, Publix has gotten away from hot food and they've taken out their salad bars while Winn-Dixie makes a big thing of their salad bars and is adding to their variety of hot foods," he said.

Publix officials have been quoted in the consumer press as saying, "Our salads are untouched by human hands." They presumably were referring to the fact that the salads are mixed and packed by machine at the chain's central processing facility.

Winn-Dixie, on the other hand, takes pride in the fact that all its fare is made in-store.

"Preparing everything on site gives us the opportunity to offer the freshest possible product to our customers," said Marc Sutherland, advertising and marketing director for Winn-Dixie's Tampa division.

The chain's Wok Shoppe Chinese program, introduced three years ago in another store here, adds theater as well as variety. It has been rolled out to two more of Winn-Dixie's units here and is being added in others in the division, Sutherland said.

"When the chef fires up that wok at lunchtime, it gets people's attention. It enhances the whole deli package," Sutherland said.

Sutherland pointed out that the division launched a multimedia advertising campaign precisely designed to tout the service the chain offers and to enhance its image in other ways.

Historically, Winn-Dixie has called itself the low-price leader, and it still is, Sutherland said. And he explained how a new image is being cultivated.

"We have a three-pronged niche: low prices, upgraded facilities and increased customer service," he said.

The division's advertising campaign that kicked off earlier this year has the theme, "While You're at the Marketplace," which implies Winn-Dixie's Marketplace stores are the place to go.

The Marketplace format stores, which bunch the fresh food departments together, were launched about six years ago.

The Winn-Dixie store on Kennedy Boulevard here is an example of the company's Marketplace/Food Pavilion format, which have the chef-prepared foods programs. "Right now 80% of our business is driven through our Marketplace stores, and 75% of our stores in the Tampa division, which includes 14 counties, are Marketplace stores," Sutherland said.

Sutherland said the chain would continue to roll out that format. The stores here as well as others will cling to the "everything prepared in-store" approach to the meals business as they continues to add more chefs to their payrolls.

In sharp contrast to a the high level customer service at Winn-Dixie and at Publix's sub sandwich station, a Kash n' Karry unit smack in the middle of an upper-income neighborhood here plenty of feet of service counter, but very little service.

In fact, on a visit to the store between 5 and 5:30 in the evening on a weekday, SN found the deli/prepared foods department in the front corner of the store deserted. It was difficult to find an associate.

The deli/prepared foods service counter sported nice displays of huge ceramic platters, though there was not a single sign identifying what the platters contained, nor anything in the way of cards or shelf tags indicating price. During SN's visit, the choices appeared to be slices of stuffed pork loin, filet mignon and a cajun-style chicken breast.

Adjacent to that counter was a 4-foot, upscale antipasto bar that displayed 11 varieties of olives and items such as roasted peppers for $5.49 a pound. Next to that, further front, was a hot bar with three entrees in long metal trays. When asked what one item was -- again, the products were not identified other than by a sign that said, "entrees, $3.99" -- the associate said, "Some kind of meat."

A cappuccino bar, decked out with espresso machine, a row of high-backed chairs and a menu listing a number of espresso-based drinks, was unstaffed.

On a visit to that same store at lunchtime the next day, SN saw pretty much the same scenario as the night before. An unstaffed coffee bar, and one harried-looking employee covering about 30 feet of service deli counter.

It looked like the chain had matched the right products to the neighborhood, but entirely forgot about execution.

Officials at Food Lion's and Kash n' Karry's corporate offices could not be reached for comment.

Local observers told SN the lack of labor, and thus lack of service, characterizes Kash n' Karry units here now.

Kash n' Karry had launched service-oriented meals programs, including carving stations, in this division three years ago, but they were dismantled when Food Lion acquired the chain.

"With the acquisition, all the service went. I think they're making huge mistakes because the clientele that comes in looking for that [meals solutions] is also looking for over-the-counter salesmanship. Slashing their labor like they are, it's not happening," said one industry observer who's a Tampa resident.

Another source said that in this neighborhood, Kash n' Karry had a huge advantage because the customer profile fits a high level of service like a glove.

"Kash n' Karry was the first and only supermarket to stake out a piece of property right there in Hyde Park and they're wasting the opportunity," he said. The store on Swann near the corner of Howard Street sits in the middle of an area that has become the "in" part of Tampa.

It's a gentrified section where doctors, lawyers and other professionals are buying renovated houses, local residents told SN.

The other major supermarket chain that has units here, Albertson's, seems to have abandoned an aggressive plan to market its Quick Fixin' prepacked meal components, even though service at its hot deli counter is good.

The trouble is that the only meal components available at the deli service counter are rotisserie and fried chicken and a few side dishes such as macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes; nothing upscale. Coleslaw was $1.49 a pound.

Officials at Albertson's did not return phone calls from SN.

How to Get There

Directions to Tampa stores profiled in the story:

Take Spruce Street exit from the airport. At fifth traffic light, make a right onto the southbound Dale Marbry Highway. Publix is on the right, at the corner of Neptune, in the Dale Mabry Shopping Center. Address: 1313 South Dale Mabry Highway Telephone: 813-258-9801

From there, continue south on Dale Mabry Highway. ALBERTSON'S is a few blocks further south, on the left, at the intersection of Euclid Avenue. It is located inside the Britton Shopping Plaza. Address: 3838 Britton Shopping Plaza Telephone: 813-831-6076

From there, go north on Dale Mabry Highway (back towards Publix) to Kennedy Boulevard. Turn right. WINN-DIXIE is located just beyond Howard and Armenia Avenues, on the left. Address: 1601 W. Kennedy Blvd. Telephone: 813-254-8930

From there, turn right out of the parking lot onto Kennedy. Turn left on Howard. KASH N' KARRY is located at the intersection of Howard and Swan Avenues. Address: 2100 W. Swann Avenue Telephone: 813-254-6800