EMILY'S SETS COMEBACK IN FAMILY MEAL, C-STORE ROLE

JACK ROBERTIELLO

NEW YORK -- Details are emerging about the reincarnation of Emily's, the convenience store/home-meal replacement operation shuttered last year.

Officials rethinking the "meals market," as Mark Cain, the company's director of development, calls it, have decided to prepackage full meals for families as well as individuals, for example. They have also decided to install, adjacent to the takeout point of sale, a 500-square-foot minimart with convenience-store type products.

Cain revealed these and other insights into Emily's evolutionary course at a meals solutions conference conducted by The Marketing Institute here. He said the revamped store is set to open in early May in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Emily's will establish a three-digit cellular telephone number to take advantage of a client base where, it estimates, cellular car phone owners are in the majority, he said.

The executive told an audience composed primarily of manufacturer representatives that Emily's goal is to rely on as little in-house preparation as possible.

When some manufacturers on the scene sought to learn how they could participate, Cain said they would have to create products with more flavor.

"You've put a lot of effort into making products that will offend no one, and as a result you have many flavor-neutral products," he said.

Instead, Emily's will seek out value-added products wherever possible by relying on small local manufacturers, he said. All company employees will be trained in Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and food safety Cain added.