RANDALLS CROSS MERCHANDISING APPLES, PIES

ROSEANNE HARPER

HOUSTON -- As part of a new focus on cross-merchandising, Randalls Food Markets here recently ran a full-page ad pairing apple pie from the in-store bakery with apples from the produce department.

The apple pie/apples effort -- a first for the chain -- included cross-merchandised displays in-store, and officials said sales results were good.

Sales were so good that the 125-unit chain will do similar team-ups with seasonal fruit and bakery products that have that fruit as an ingredient, said Alex Zakhel, the chain's bakery category manager.

"We'll definitely do this again. We had a great response. Our bakery managers said it was very effective, that they sold a lot of pies," Zakhel added. He declined to be more specific about sales figures, but said that both bakery and produce departments had "notable" increases resulting from the ad and in-store efforts.

The team-up between the in-store bakery and the produce department marks the beginning of a new focus on cross-merchandising that the chain recently has adopted, Zakhel said. He went on to explain how the bakery and produce departments shared displays for the apple/apple pie promotion.

"We put apple pies in the produce department with the apple displays. And, in some bakeries, depending on the amount of space we had, we set up displays of apples in the bakery. Some stores also had an additional display at the front of the store that combined the apple pies and apples," Zakhel added.