BALLS ROLLS OUT THREE SUSHI BARS IN ONE DAY

ROSEANNE HARPER

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Balls Food Stores here launched three sushi bars on the same day -- and plunged into educating area consumers about the product via the evening news.

The move attracted local news coverage, including an on-the-spot televised interview with a high-level chain executive at a sushi bar in Balls' latest Hen House unit.

The most popular varieties of sushi are displayed in Balls stores in packs of six or eight, but the Long Beach, Calif.-based Advanced Fresh Concepts, which operates the sushi bars under a contract, makes it clear that almost any type of sushi will be made upon request.

At Balls' upscale Hen House stores, California roll has been the biggest seller, as it is at other stores, according to Elsie Pon, assistant to the president of AFC. But combination packs, some containing tuna sushi, were popular too, she added.

Sushi packs, of six large pieces or eight smaller pieces, range from $3.35 to $4.45, and deluxe combo packs range from $5.55 to $6.55. Party platters also are offered. At the Balls Prairie Village Hen House, customers can see the sushi chef almost immediately as they enter. The store's entire fresh food line-up is against the right side of the store, first in the traffic pattern.

As a customer turns right upon entering the store, he sees, straight ahead, a cappuccino bar, a pizza station and the sushi chef at work behind a low-profile, tiered self-service case.

The refrigerated sushi work station and case are about 6 feet long. Space for packages of sushi in the case was carved out by compressing a display of chilled pizzas into less space.

"The sushi looks great there. The tiered case and the lighting set it off," Pon said. In the other two Hen House stores, the self-service

packs of sushi are presented in coffin cases in front of the sushi prep station, but they also are part of the deli/food-service line-up and are situated near the front of the store.

Officials at 21-unit Balls declined to comment on their decision to add sushi to some stores, saying it was too soon to discuss the program.

Bill Esch, executive director of Hen House/Balls, took the opportunity to explain what sushi is to an audience that presumably is not very familiar with the product. Esch explained to TV reporters that sushi has little to do with raw fish, and more to do with seasoned rice. He also explained that unbeknownst to most people, any raw fish used in sushi is frozen first in order to destroy any harmful organisms that might be present. That is in keeping with Food and Drug Administration regulations, he pointed out.

For TV viewers, Pon described sushi as "seasoned, cooked, medium grain rice that can have seafood or vegetables or both as ingredients." She explained that sushi rice could be thought of as having the same function bread does in a sandwich: it holds the ingredients together. What makes it "sushi" rice is a seasoning based in vinegar, salt and sugar. Pon pointed out to TV reporters that only 5% of AFC's sushi sales are made up of varieties featuring raw fish. For example, California rolls, the most popular of AFC's sushi pieces, contain no raw fish, she said. They are made from sushi rice, avocado, cucumber and imitation crab meat.

"I also told them that in Hawaii, a popular variety of sushi is made with Spam. There's a large Japanese population there and Japanese people love Spam," Pon told SN after the sushi launching at Balls.

The TV news was aired at 5 p.m., and just a little later, "A customer told me she had come right over to buy some sushi after seeing us on the news," Pon said.

Pon said she expects the sushi bars to be particularly successful in the Hen House stores, in part, because of the enthusiastic send-off they got. In addition to putting a blurb in its regular circular, Balls ran a quarter-page ad in the local newspaper announcing that sushi was coming to the Hen House units. Banners and smaller signs in-store also announced the sushi debut.

"They're also behind it 100% and that's what will make it a success. And it's in their deli or food-service department. We've found that's the location in supermarkets where it does best," Pon said.

Also, all three sushi bars at Balls stores have a sushi chef on duty all day. That, said Pon, is a big ingredient in sales success. "We've estimated that in the stores where we have a sushi chef on duty sales are two and a half times greater than those where we simply deliver product each day for a self-service case," Pon said.

AFC sends trained chefs from its California facility or, in some cases, it trains a local sushi chef. If it employs a local chef, AFC sends supervisors from its hone facility to train the person.

Sampling is particularly important when it comes to sushi, Pon said.

"Once you get people away from just thinking 'raw fish,' they're willing to taste it and they like it," Pon said. For the first few weeks, the sushi chef samples products all day.

AFC was established in 1986 to supply sushi to supermarkets. By now, the company supplies supermarkets in 17 states. The link-ups are contractual agreements that involve a percentage of AFC's sales being paid to the supermarket.

Some of the supermarkets that have such agreements with AFC are units of Kroger Co., Cincinnati; Vons Cos., Arcadia, Calif.; Randalls Food Markets, Houston; Tops Markets, Buffalo, N.Y.; Lucky Stores, Dublin, Calif.; Baker's Supermarkets, Omaha, Neb. and Gooding's Supermarkets, Altamonte Springs, Fla.