CARNIVAL IS DISPLAYING AN ETHNIC SENSIBILITY

ROSEANNE HARPER

DALLAS -- Carnival Food Stores is honing its fresh-food marketing tools at a new store here that offers ethnic items such as cut fruit with a South of the Border seasoning, Mexican stew and full-bodied pigs.

And the chain's first-ever service floral department in the store here is already taking orders for quinceaneras' birthday celebrations.

The 17-unit Carnival Food Store chain, which markets primarily to an Hispanic population, is owned by Minyard Food Stores, Coppell, Texas, which also owns and operates 46 stores under the Minyard banner and 21 Sack'n Saves.

Even before they enter the new, from-the-ground-up store (it opened March 12), customers are immersed in Carnival's heated-up ethnic atmosphere.

"First off, when you walk up to the store, you hear Spanish music," said James Cook, director of operations for Carnival. That's new for the chain, he said.

Other firsts for Carnival here include a fresh fruit juice bar, where there's open preparation; an in-line steam table offering up a variety of Mexican specialties such as barbacoa (cheek meat pulled from the steamed heads of cows); an in-store bakery with a product mix that's been increased by 20%; and an expanded produce department.

The list also includes a very visible, 50-foot tortilleria that turns out 4,800 fresh-made tortillas an hour. (See SN's March 23 issue for more details on the tortilleria.)

There's also a pharmacy and a post office. "We wanted to offer just a little more than anyone else, and to create a one-stop shopping experience, an exciting one," Cook said.

He emphasized that despite all its new elements, the store is not an experiment itself. The added space in this unit, which is the first Carnival to be built from the ground up, has enabled the company to install programs that it would have liked to have placed in some existing stores. At 50,000 square feet, the new store is the company's largest and is nearly a third larger than any of Carnival's existing units.

The merchandising continues outside. In front, vendors sell hot food. The line-up includes a roasted corn stand, a taco stand, and a nacho wagon, and more could be added, Cook said. The food stands are accompanied by music piped out to the parking lot via a sound system that separate from the one used inside.

The vendors lease the space, as do six nonfood vendors with booths inside the store. "There's nobody around here that's doing anything like that," Cook said.

He said turning up the volume on ethnic micro-marketing is Carnival's strategy to get a leg up on any potential competition.

The market area the new Carnival draws from has a population that's 60% Hispanic. Houston-based Fiesta Mart operates a store directly across the street that also caters to the Hispanic market.

Of the Carnival's fresh-food departments, a juice and fruit bar heads the traffic pattern. Cut fruits and fresh-squeezed juices are displayed on a self-service ice table, just in front of an open prep station where associates can be seen chopping, squeezing, packaging and bottling.

That sets the pace, spotlighting freshness and ethnicity, too, because it creates a way to immediately showcase items popular with the Hispanic population, Cook said. "We're also adding an Hispanic spice to the fruits that enhances the flavors, especially of honeydew and papayas."

The produce department here at the new store, which is at least 30% larger than the average at a Carnival store, sports a 48-ft. case of Mexican specialties such as jicama and cilantro, and a variety, boosted by about 20%, of other items less well known to the non-Hispanic population.

Next comes the in-store bakery, which also has increased its variety of ethnic items. In fact, a 20-ft. case is devoted to Mexican specialties.

Following the deli, which offers shaved meats and standard bulk meats, there is a 12-ft. hot case containing packaged items such as fried chicken, rice and beans and Mexican specialties.

Out in front of the customer for the first time, is an 8-ft. steam table that seves as its own menu because customers can see the entrees offered, Cook said. One other Carnival unit has a steam table but it's behind a wall in the kitchen.

From the steam table, customers can order such specialties as Mexican stew and enchiladas. There are also other items such as fajitas, rice and beans and rotisserie chicken. The store does not offer hot dogs and hamburgers as some of the other Carnival units have in the past.

The menu is changed each day to keep interest up, Cook said, and seating has been more than doubled from the one other Carnival unit that has a steam table and dining area. At the new store, tables and chairs accommodate 48 people.

"Hispanic customers, in particular, I think, make an event of shopping and giving them a place to sit down and eat is part of it. I see families at the seating area eating whole meals," Cook said.

The hot table, in operation from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it's a toss up at this time as to how much is eaten in and how much taken out, Cook said.

At the new store, Carnival features service poultry and seafood departments, hallmarks of the chain, and has added a service red meat counter for the first time.

"As the Hispanic influence has grown, we've noticed that specialty fresh meat stores are springing up in our market areas. That's why we decided to add it. We don't want customers to have to go somewhere else to get what they want. You won't find your usual cuts of meat here, though. You'll see a lot of ox tails, beef tongues and shank steaks," Cook said.

He said additional space at the store has enabled the installation of spot boxes, island coffin cases in the aisle that carry even more specialty meats, which is a type of whole product that other Carnival stores don't have room for.

"For example, in one of the spot boxes we have full-bodied pigs," Cook said. He explained that "full-bodied" means the 60-lb.-plus pigs have their heads and feet still intact, "and probably their tails, too." Another spot box is devoted to whole cow and lamb heads, Cook noted.

At the front of the store on the corner opposite the cut fruit bar is the full-service floral department.

The shop is separated entirely from the produce department. Floral designers can make up arrangement or bouquets on the spot, and also take call-in orders for occasions like weddings and funerals and birthday celebrations.

"We've taken orders for cinceaneras' celebrations," Cook said. He explained that those are parties held for Hispanic girls when they reach their 15th birthdays, "when they're entering womanhood," apparently the Hispanic counterpart for "sweet sixteen" celebrations in the United States.