AROMA OF BAKING WAFTS SALES AT HI NABOR UNIT

ROSEANNE HARPER

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hi Nabor Supermarkets has seen a significant rise in bakery sales at a remodel here since it moved the bakery up to the front of the store and began baking bread throughout the day.

Sales of French bread in particular are soaring, up 50% in two months, said Sam Crifasi, owner of the three-unit independent.

Crifasi said that currently the store is ringing up an average of 200 loaves of French bread a day, at 89 cents each. The loaves are packaged in paper bags that are printed with Hi Nabor's name and logo.

Crifasi said that cycle-baking of the product is probably the key factor that has pushed sales of French bread up so much.

Previously, associates had baked the bread two or three times a day, but now it is almost a constant practice, he said. The French bread is baked from formed, frozen dough at least six times a day, Crifasi said. Any loaves left over at the end of the day are made into garlic bread.

That change, he said, combined with moving the department up to the front of the store, is credited with hiking total bakery sales by 15% since the remodel was completed in May.

Hi Nabor's bakery has taken over the up-front spot formerly occupied by the store's floral department. The floral department, meanwhile, was moved deeper into the store on the fresh-foods aisle. Part of the floral section follows the produce department, which comes after bakery, and displaces a 12-foot section that formerly held a "wall of values." Two new island displays, across from that section, are also dedicated to floral.

Now that the bakery is up by the entrance, "That wonderful aroma hits you as soon as you walk in the door, and it's hard to resist," Crifasi said. He added that customers who stop to buy a hot loaf of bread are apt to buy other bakery items, too.

He even sees the hot bread as a driver of sales in other departments of the store, such as butter sales in dairy and cheese sales in deli, reasoning that, "If you buy a loaf of bread, you have to have something to put on it, don't you?"

Hi Nabor's bakery was expanded from 1,500 to 2,500 square feet. It is now situated to the right, just inside the entrance and in this position it heads the fresh-food aisle.

Even though Crifasi views the sales success as directly related to the move up-front, there is no plan at this time to change the location of the bakery department in Hi Nabor's other two units.

The move at this store, which is located on Jones Creek Road, was spurred by a deal that Hi Nabor and its supplier, Associated Grocers of Louisiana, struck with Piccadilly Cafeterias, a popular chain based here.

As reported in SN, the cafeteria chain Piccadilly is leasing 3,200 square feet of space in the store for Piccadilly Express -- an abbreviated version of its freestanding cafeterias.

The cafeteria was placed at the back of the store where Hi Nabor's bakery was formerly situated. In addition, the cafeteria took over space formerly occupied by Hi Nabor's hot-food program and its kitchen.

The Piccadilly operation itself bakes a limited variety of products at the site. The items, which have proven successful at the chain's freestanding operations, include fruit pies, banana bread, hummingbird cake (a Southern version of Italian cream cake), dinner rolls and French bread.

Most of Piccadilly Express' fresh-baked French bread is served by the slice with its meals. It also offers loaves for sale at $1.09.

While at this store, French bread is offered by both the in-store bakery and the cafeteria, it is more typical in lease negotiations with supermarkets for Piccadilly to ask that the supermarket stop producing any product that Piccadilly offers, said Warriner Siddle, director of development for Piccadilly.

"The Hi Nabor people felt so strongly about their French bread, because they've been doing so well with it, that we agreed they could continue. So we both make it. That's the only thing we do compete on," Siddle said.

The remodeled bakery, meanwhile, is actually producing fewer items in a larger space than it had when it was in the back of the store, Crifasi said.

"We've cut out some items that Piccadilly makes. We still do birthday cakes, but there are some regular cakes that we've stopped baking because Piccadilly does them," he said.

The added space for bakery offers other benefits, however. One is that it enhances the open-production feel of the bakery, Crifasi said.

"We took some partitions down to make a wide-open space. The work area is very visible to customers as soon as they come in. You notice the bakery right away on your right; and you see floral quicker, too, because of the island displays straight ahead," he added.

The activity and the visibility are big factors in the bakery's big ring-ups, but it's the all-day aroma of fresh-baked bread that's most important in getting customers to stop there, Crifasi maintained.