RANDALLS TAKES BIGGER BAGELS TO HEARTH

ROSEANNE HARPER

HOUSTON -- Randalls Food Markets here upped the size of its bagels and gave them a big send-off with a full-page ad in the local daily newspaper.

Success was big, too, according to Alex Sakhel, bakery category manager for Randall's, Tom Thumb and Simon David.

The 120-store Randalls has 50 Houston units and sold 850,000 bagels the week the ad ran, Sakhel said.

"And those are conservative figures, because I don't have all the results in. By comparison, two months ago, we ran an ad with a special on bagels at six for a dollar just as we do in this ad, and we sold 432,000 the week we ran that one. So we nearly doubled sales this time," he said.

What made the difference, Sakhel believed, is that the latest ad says the bagels are boiled in water and hearth baked.

"People love that. They know they're healthy and baked fresh. I know people who drive right past bagel shops in their own neighborhood to come to a Randalls where they can see the bagels being formed and boiled," Sakhel said. The Houston division has four stores with open-production bagel-making in their bakeries. Another unit is supplied by one of those in-store operations. Randalls remaining Houston units have their bagels formed, boiled and partially hearth-baked by a local manufacturer to Randalls' specifications. Baking is completed in store.

But the stores that have open production in store are so successful with their bagel sales that Randalls plans to make room for such operations in all new stores and remodels in all divisions, Sakhel said. In-store signs point out that Randalls' current bagels are bigger than they were before.

"We knew we had to make ours bigger because of our competition from bagel shops, which have a larger one. We went from a 3- ounce to a 4-ounce bagel," Sakhel said. The everyday bagel price is three for a dollar and was not raised when size was increased.

Randalls offers six bagel varieties -- cinnamon raisin, blueberry, plain, egg, pumpernickel, garlic and onion. The most popular is cinnamon raisin.

"Cinnamon raisin makes up at least 30% of our bagel sales. Blueberry comes next, then plain," Sakhel said.