KNIVES SHARPEN FOODTOWN SALES

JOEL ELSON

EDISON, N.J. -- Foodtown supermarkets gave away steak knives as part of a kitchen cutlery continuity promotion last month. A preliminary sales tabulation at the end of the promotion showed $150,000 in cutlery merchandise was sold at cost, according to Allan Weiss, merchandise manager at Alpine Distributors, a West Nyack, N.Y.-based nonfood division of Twin County Grocers, the Foodtown co-op warehouse here. Retailers marked up the cutlery merchandise 35%, according to Weiss.

Under the promotion, 100 Foodtown supermarkets offered a free steak knife to shoppers who purchased a weekly featured Ultra Sharp premium kitchen knife, along with a $5 grocery order. This was the Foodtown group's first cutlery promotion in several years, according to Weiss.

Although the weekly featured knives were offered with both black and white handles, "we ended up ordering more knives in black for stores after that color out-sold white three-to-one," said Weiss. Priced from 99 cents to $3.99, the weekly featured knives came in a wide range of applications, including paring, slicing, boning and filleting. Also offered was a chef's knife, a pot fork and a 6-inch sandwich knife.

The cost for each free steak knife was about 69 cents, according to the vendor.