SAVE MART'S LARGER GOAL

BOB BAUER

FRESNO, Calif. -- "Change is not an option," according to Pat Brooks, director of frozen, deli, dairy and liquor at Save Mart Supermarkets, Modesto, Calif. "Change is mandatory."

For frozen foods, that means change for the bigger.

Anticipating a continued rise in the popularity of frozen foods, the 95-unit chain installed its largest frozen food section to date in a store it opened here in February.

Making more room for frozens is the latest in an ongoing effort by Brooks and Save Mart to entice shoppers to spend more of their dollars in the department.

"This same size store we were building in 1990 had less frozen food space than our current format," said Brooks in an interview with SN. "We added another 12 feet of dual island -- 24 feet, if you wrap it around. Plus, we added an extra four doors from the first stores we built of this size."

A vaulted, mirrored ceiling provides the illusion of even more space and creates "an identity we didn't have before," Brooks said.

The new store, with slightly more than 45,000 square feet of selling space, is the firm's prototype store for the balance of the 1990s -- with built-in adaptability to change.

"It's very easy to expand or draw back in. We like the overall concept. We like the expandability. In areas that have a more dense population, we could expand to a 50,000-square-foot store; and we can downsize to as low as 42,000 and feel very comfortable."

The extra frozens space is primarily in the back of the section, Brooks said, pointing to a 36-foot dual-island case in the second half of the aisle.

"This was a 24-foot case in other stores; and we cut the last four doors off and had a promo area back here. It just didn't work out. So the decision was that we'd push this dual island case back [by making it bigger], get away from the promo area, still have a little room to merchandise, but give us some more case space."

Brooks has also been able to turn the tables and do some cross-merchandising in which the frozen products are put in another part of the store. Two end-aisle freezers give shoppers an extra chance to shop for frozen food items.

"We kicked around different ways of merchandising a freezer door," Brooks said. "In some stores, we leave open, refrigerated cases. But in this store we changed to freezer cabinets.

"We're trying to give it a breakfast theme here," he said, pointing to one of the freezers, which sits near an aisle with other breakfast items. "In this one there's some ice cream novelties, and we're tying into the bakery cakes on the top shelf," he said of the other double-doored case.

"We, as a company, continue to look for ways to better serve our customers' needs, and we need to expand our frozens to do that," Brooks added.

That expansion gives Brooks 144 feet of upright space in 56 doors, in addition to 74 feet of dual-island space. He said much of the newer space is taken up by carrying more varieties of entrees, frozen juices, breakfast items, ice cream and novelties.

Pizza may be next. "Supermarket pizza has not indexed as well in California as it has in other markets. With the introduction of Tombstone pizza about two years ago, we're seeing the need to expand the frozen supermarket pizza section by going toward more of the premium-type pizzas.

"We see this as an area in the California supermarket that has tremendous potential for future growth," Brooks said.

Growth is a way of life at Save Mart. When Brooks joined the company on the store level in 1963, the chain had eight stores. That number had climbed to 29 when Brooks moved into the corporate offices in 1981. Today the number stands at 95 units, five of those being warehouse stores.

As the company has grown, so have its stores. Today's 45,000-square-foot stores are 10,000 to 12,000 square feet larger than stores built by Save Mart in the 1980s.

"We're a chain of many different types of stores because we've built a lot of our own stores, and we've purchased some stores from other companies as well," he said.

That diversity means the frozen food stockkeeping-unit count in Save Mart's stores ranges from an average of 900 in some of the smaller stores to between 1,200 to 1,250 in the new unit.

Brooks didn't have exact sales figures chainwide for frozen foods, but said he's pleased with his results.

"We combine [sales of] frozens and refrigerated grocery products as one department. But I would say our frozen sales would probably be 6% to 7% of total sales. In stores where we don't have a pharmacy or a video department, it would probably skew a little higher. "But in a store like this, with the added departments like video, bakery and deli, the percentage is less. Our dollar sales are strong, but when you put it in with all the other departments, the percentage of the total may be down."

One of the chain's most significant changes in frozen food is the location of the department. Brooks said in the early 1980s most of the frozens sections consisted of a dual island case and two uprights in the center of the store. Some industry survey results showed that may not have been the way to go, however.

"Prior logic said a customer would shop up and down every aisle and then come back to the center of the store, down the freezer aisle and right into the checkstand," Brooks said.

"That may or may not happen. There again, I don't think we have conclusive evidence that we've done the right or the wrong thing. By giving the section a vaulted ceiling, we've made it a total department within itself; and I think we've done the right thing."

Brooks said he also thinks the company is doing the right thing by increasing its frozens advertising. In March, for the first time in the company's history, Save Mart put only frozen food items on the front page of a circular. Since then, it's been done with other departments as well.

Most weeks, at least one item from each department gets front-page play. Inside, however, frozens is getting record levels of attention.

"Where I used to have two-thirds of a page, or the bottom strip of a double-truck, now we devote one full page to frozen and refrigerated," Brooks said. "In the 1980s, we used to run an average of five frozen and five refrigerated items a week. Now we're up to 17 to 18 items a week; eight to nine of each."

It's important to spread those sale items throughout the department, Brooks said. "We don't want all of them to be in the entree section. We want to get the customer to the juice section, the breakfast section, the ice cream section and the vegetable section; get a flow within the department."

Ads should be used to build sales, not gross profit, according to Brooks. "You merchandise your department for gross profit. Hopefully, the schematics, the layout of the store, the human element at the store level, will do that. Your ads help

build image to drive sales."

Although Brooks is quick to give credit to Robert Piccinini, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Cecil Russell, vice president of marketing and merchandising, and Art Patch, vice president of operations, much of the credit for building the fast-growing chain's frozen department must go to Brooks, if for no other than reason than upper management's style.

"Since January of 1981 they've given me the autonomy to run the department," Brooks said. "The way I look at it is, they've given me a portion of the business to manage and to run and give them a return on investment. They've given me the ability to make the decisions important to running this department. "Our company's strength is in the strength of the individual."

That philosophy is carried through to the store level. Brooks said part of the company's marketing program is the creation of a card for every ad. That card is distributed to store-level management and lists "must display" items, as well as "good profit items they need to look at, and if they have room, to display them; but that's not mandatory.

"We don't want to get to a point where we tell the people that we want X on Y end. We want our people to still have the creativity to feel like they have a hands-on impact on their store's sales and gross profits."

Brooks used an example of an employee who proudly showed him the three-sided signs he put up in the aisle. "That's what we want; creativity from within the store. Instead of just putting up a one-sided sign and letting it blow around, he found a sign that spins around and lets the customer see it from all angles. We want that creativity.

"Every person has creative ideas. Every one of those creative ideas may not work. But you know what? Sixty percent of those may work. We don't want every store to be the same. The basics are the same, but the creativity at the store level can make a difference."