HOLIDAY MENU WHETS SALES FOR QUILLIN'S

ROSEANNE HARPER

LA CROSSE, Wis. -- Quillin's here is lighting up the sales picture for the rest of the year with a new seasonal program that encourages shoppers to customize their holiday dinner and party orders.

The deli initiative, "Create a Feast," launched just before Thanksgiving, gets credit for pushing total Thanksgiving dinner sales to new heights and increasing add-on sales by at least a third, officials said.

"Create a Feast" features a menu/order form that makes it easy for customers to order exactly the prepared foods they want for their holiday dinner, outside the basic turkey-dinner package, which is still offered, said Patty Valentine, catering coordinator at the nine-unit, family-owned independent.

The Create a Feast menu/order form, bordered with drawings of holly leaves and poinsettias, does several things that help whip up sales. It emphasizes the large number of choices available at Quillin's, alerts customers that they can customize their orders, and reminds them of items they might otherwise have forgotten to order, Valentine said.

The idea was born during Quillin's last holiday season when the retailer noticed that an increasing number of customers ordering the basic turkey-dinner package also ordered extras like a vegetable platter or 2 pounds of additional stuffing or cranberry relish, Valentine said.

"I'm sure there were people whose order we didn't get, because they thought the turkey-dinner package was it," Valentine said. "Figuring that wasn't enough, they might not have ordered anything from us."

The order form is printed like a restaurant menu, divided into a list of hors d'oeuvres, entrees, side dishes, dinner rolls, desserts, and holiday specialties like rosettes and sandbakkels (cookies that are popular with people of Norwegian descent, Valentine explained, adding that they're big sellers for Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Create a Feast includes more than 50 items, even wines and drink mixes. Hors d'oeuvres listed include a shrimp tray, a taco dip tray, cheese balls and logs, a meat/cheese tray, Tex-Mex tray and a wings tray. Each ranges in price from $1.99 for one cheese ball to $15 for a dozen shrimp and cocktail sauce.

Entrees on the menu are turkey, ham wrapped in rye dough, roasted pork loin and prime rib. They range in retail price from $4.99 a pound to $9.99. Green bean casserole, $2.99 a pound; cheesy potatoes, $2.99 a pound; and cranberry relish and cranberry fluff for $3.29 a pound are some of the sides offered. The items are listed with the price per pound opposite them and then two adjacent blank columns in which the customer can note the quantity of each that he or she wants to order, and the total price.

The company has offered most of the menu items for years from its service deli case, but has never presented the choices in such an organized manner, Valentine said. The order form acts as a checklist for customers, she added.

"This way, when they're thinking about a holiday meal, they have all the choices at their fingertips, listed right there. Hopefully, it will remind them of everything they might need. For example, cranberry fluff and dinner rolls."

Valentine also pointed out that the menu/order form is designed to ensure that orders are correctly filled.

"The customer makes out the order himself, noting what day, at what time and at which of our stores he wants to pick the dinner up. [The order form] also may make people think of other entree choices for dinner. We were surprised, for example, at how many orders we got for prime rib for Thanksgiving, because you tend to think mostly about turkey for that holiday. The ham wrapped in rye dough was very popular, too," she said.

Quillin's expects to do even better with dinner orders for Christmas because people already know about the choices offered, and the ease of ordering that the new system provides, Valentine said. Thanksgiving dinner sales were encouraging. At its flagship store, Quillin's doubled the number of Thanksgiving dinner orders -- which included the new varieties this year as well as the traditional turkey-dinner package -- over last year, Valentine said.

"Also, people just keep getting busier. They don't have time to cook dinner themselves. So, for each holiday, dinner sales get better," she added.

To offer even more convenience, the new four-page menu/order form includes a guide to help the customer decide how much food to order. For example, it suggests 4 to 6 ounces of entree protein per person; 3 to 4 ounces per person for salads; and no more than six people for each pie.

The introduction of Create a Feast is the newest component of the retailer's holiday foods program. Quillin's basic turkey-dinner package, which includes a 10- to 12-pound roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy and cranberry relish, retailed this year for $29.99, the same price as last year.

Turkeys for the basic dinner package, as well as the entrees offered on the holiday dinner menu, are prepared in-store. So are the side dishes. The baked goods, for the most part, are produced at the retailer's central bakery. One notable exception is a new item this year, "mile-high cake," which Quillin's sources from outside. That's a two-layer, round cake that stands more than a foot tall, Valentine explained. In three flavors, it's retailing for $49.99 for a whole cake, and for $2.99 a slice. Another exception is Quillin's signature Blarney Bars, in four flavors, for $1.99. They're made by a manufacturer to the retailer's specifications.

But pies, including strawberry-rhubarb, peach, blueberry, apple and cherry, as well as pumpkin, are made in Quillin's bakery. So is Quillin's homemade peanut brittle. They're all on the menu/order form. Pumpkin pies are $4.99 each; the fruit pies, $5.99 each. Peanut brittle is $1.69 a pound.