CHEF CALLED KEY TO HMR RECIPE AT STRAUB'S

DON YAEGER

ST. LOUIS -- Peppered by promotions and a professional chef, a gourmet-style home-meal replacement program is proving to be a winner at Straub's, a four-unit independent, here.

HMR with a gourmet touch "did very well from day one," said Paul Poe, director of merchandising for Straub's, which has held a carriage-trade reputation for most of its 95 years.

Since the program was launched about a year ago, "Sales have been doubling every six months," Poe said.

The retailer continues to advertise and promote the program vigorously and now, as a result of its success with traditional single-portion entrees, is considering expanding the program with grill-ready items and casual catering.

Straub's preferred to go the gourmet route in order to meet demand for its consumers, Poe noted. "Our target audience is more upscale. Our customers are more interested in fine dining than in quick meals."

The company offers its customers a half-dozen entrees each season -- priced from $6.99 to $12.99. There are also a few menu refinements within each season, at which time additional items are offered based on extremes in the weather.

Key to the program's success is the hiring of a professional chef, Poe said. Straub's hired theirs away from the local Ritz-Carlton hotel -- and now calls Daniel Coniff its "chef-in-residence" and markets his "New York chef" pedigree.

Poe said that high-caliber chefs often are available because they are tired of working in traditional food service when other people are playing. At a grocery store, they get a nine-to-five lifestyle, he explained.

Now Coniff, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y., plans menus and supervises four full-time employees in the company's central kitchen. Meals are distributed daily to the firm's four stores -- three of them in well-heeled suburbs, and the fourth in a St. Louis neighborhood with mixed demographics.

The HMR offering consists of two types of meals: microwavable entrees which have been totally precooked, but not frozen; and meals which need cooking -- usually up to 30 minutes.

Meats in the ready-to-cook offerings have been seared for the sake of appearance, Poe said. While one type of entree is not promoted over the other type, Poe said that the totally unfinished items provide better quality and presentation -- and result in a better end-product.

The precooked entrees are allowed a two-day turnover time in the stores. Each store gets about 50 entrees daily, Poe stated.

A line of soups ranging from shrimp bisque to chicken noodle is also very popular, according to the merchandising executive. Retailing at $2.29 for a pint and $4.69 for a quart, the soups, like the entrees, are prepared from scratch. Each store gets about 10 cases of soups a day, consisting of 12 containers each.

The entrees are displayed in a 6-foot section of the self-service meat case, which is adjacent to the service case. A store meatcutter is responsible for the HMR section -- making sure that presentation of the package is the same as when it left the kitchen.

At one time, the products were displayed in service meat cases, but it was found that they were so popular, they didn't need any service to encourage movement, Poe pointed out.

The current best seller is salmon en papillote with lemon dill butter, julienne vegetables and steamed potatoes at $7.99, Poe said, adding that "It tastes good and is wrapped in parchment paper for self poaching."

Poe said he thinks that Straub's is one of the few, if not the only, supermarket operators in the country offering lamb as a precooked HMR entree. Lamb stew with mashed potatoes and baby carrots sells for $8.99.

"Our customers buy lots of lamb through our meat departments -- so we have a reputation in lamb. We buy only the finest restaurant-quality meat," Poe noted. Ingredients for all of the meals are obtained in-house.

Straub's stores range from 8,000 to 12,000 square feet The gourmet program caught on first at the suburban stores -- but had a somewhat slower reception at the city unit.

Promotion of the concept and menu is considered important at Straub's, Poe said. Periodic advertisements in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch contain eye-catching headlines such as "What is a New York chef doing in a grocery store?"

In summer, the company enters a civic "Taste of Clayton" (Mo.) restaurant food-tasting festival. Sampling of Straub's glazed salmon last year resulted in the item being the firm's No. 1 seller for the remainder of the summer.

The Webster Groves store is marked by a huge banner across the front proclaiming "For the fastest dinner in Webster, make it a Straub's night."

With regard to the future, "We are constantly adjusting the program, based on customer recommendations and product movement," Poe said. "A world of opportunity exists to expand the program to include grill-ready items such as pot roast in foil surrounded by vegetable ingredients.

"We also intend to tap the casual catering market -- providing custom meals for six to 10 people -- at less cost than from a professional caterer."

Straub's catering effort in gourmet HMR already got a substantial boost late last year when it provided fresh-food/wine baskets for a Parkinson's disease fundraiser.

The baskets, which sold for $250 and up, were distributed by the Parkinson's fundraisers, Poe said. The charitable agency raised $75,000 from their list of benefactors.