MEIJER BRINGS COPS, FIREMEN IN FOR ANNUAL PACZKI FEST

ROSEANNE HARPER

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio -- In a monumental effort that put it in the news all over the Ohio Valley, a Meijer store here made its annual Fat Tuesday, paczki-eating contest an event that bolstered its connection to the community.

Paczki, paczki-eating contests, paczki balls, and other paczki fests and promotions have been hiking midwinter sales for in-store bakeries ever since Carl Richardson, aka Mr. Paczki, in conjunction with the Retailer's Bakery Association, Laurel, Md., formed a national promotional board a few years ago.

Paczki originated in Poland where they were the ultimate sweet treat, traditionally the last one, to be eaten before Lent began. Richardson saw the huge, overstuffed, doughnut-like pastries as potential sales boosters at a time of year when bakery sales are usually weak.

He showed ISB directors across the country how paczki, offered for a limited period of time prior to Lent, and events built around them, could create excitement -- and sales -- in the dead of winter. As a result, some retailers took the idea and ran with it. Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Meijer has been one of them.

Its unit here went all out this year to involve the community and to bring more attention to the whole store. For the last two years, the store has held a paczki-eating contest with cash prizes that are donated to the winner's charity of choice. This year, the contest included a record number of participants (19); a record amount of donations going to such charities as the American Cancer Society, Juvenile Diabetes Association and county children's funds; and record media coverage. What's more, the champ -- a Meijer employee -- also set a record, eating seven, huge paczki in two minutes.

To the first-, second- and third-place winners, respectively, the Meijer store presented $200, $150 and $50 that was channeled to the winners' pick of charities and a local Coca-Cola bottling company matched the sums.

The contest participants included representatives of fire departments, police departments and sheriff's offices from a wide-ranging area, as well as Meijer employees and athletes from local schools. The hoopla attracted the attention of three network affiliate television stations, cable television and a radio station, who covered the event on Fat Tuesday, the eve of Lent. And the next day, the local daily newspaper ran a front-page photo of paczki-eating police officers.

Sales of the big pastries, too, went well, a store-level source told SN. On Fat Tuesday and the preceding week, the store sold upward of 2,500 individual paczki.

Another Ohio retailer, Riesbeck's Markets, an independent headquartered in St. Clairsville, also got record attention from the consumer media this year with its annual Paczki Ball at its flagship store.

"On the weekend before Lent began, a TV station from Steubenville, an NBC affiliate, came over to our St. Clairsville store and photographed the whole process as we made paczki. It ended with the station's weatherman filling a paczki himself, dusting sugar on it, and then taking a big bite out of it. They showed that several times over the weekend and then [the camera crew] came back on the day of the ball. That day, we were on the early and late evening news," said John Chickery, bakery director, at the nine-unit Riesbeck's.

Chickery said paczki and Riesbeck's got TV coverage last year, but no way near as much as this year.

With the TV coverage at Riesbeck's and Meijer, a potential audience of at least 2 million was reached, said Dennis Smith, chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Paczki Promotion Committee.

Smith, who is president of Cincinnati-based Paper Products Co., helped orchestrate the events at the two stores. Earlier in February, he and his committee caught the media's attention with paczki-eating contests at a Cincinnati Mighty Ducks hockey game.