SCORING IN THE KIDZ ZONE

BARBARA McDONALD

SAN RAMON, Calif. -- The Frozen Food Council of Northern California here has teamed up with Raley's Supermarkets & Drug Centers and Save Mart Supermarkets to create a "Kidz Zone" in the freezer section as part of this year's Cool Food for Kids promotion.

The Kidz Zone includes secondary placement of products geared to youngsters, according to Jay Prisco, the council's administrator. Included are such foods as Totino's Party Pizza or its Mr. P's brand, Bagel Bites, Eggo Mini-Waffles, some juices, and children's entrees, like Fran's Healthy Helpings, Fun Feast and Kid Cuisine.

Participating stores are a Raley's unit in suburban Sacramento and a Save Mart unit in Stockton.

A local radio station does a remote broadcast from each Kidz Zone store, which will go festive for the day with balloons and prizes, and the council's local representative, Peter the Penguin, Prisco said. The Raley's event took place Oct. 18, and the Save Mart event will be held Oct. 25.

Pat Brooks, director of frozen foods/dairy/deli for Save Mart, Modesto, Calif., explained that the Kidz Zone has its own two-door section. The regional council is providing a banner over the top, identifying it as a "Kidz Zone."

"In the freezer we are doing a breakfast-snack-dinner presentation," Brooks said, which uses smaller-sized pizzas and other "kid-related" frozen-food items. The Kidz Zone will be up for 60 days, he added.

Although this is the fourth year the National Frozen Food Association, Harrisburg, Pa., has held a Cool Food for Kids promotion, it's the first year that the Frozen Food Council of Northern California has participated, Prisco said.

Held this year in October, Cool Food targets school children and their families. The promotion is meant to educate children, the consumers of tomorrow, about the benefits of frozen foods.

The council is also running ads in 16 northern California daily newspapers and the Reno Gazette, reaching 2.5 million people, with a special offer for a $10 rebate to consumers who buy 20 frozen-food items from designated manufacturers and mail in Universal Product Codes and cash-register receipts. The rebate comes in the form of a gift certificate from the store shown on the.

The council has also tied the San Francisco Zoo in with a Bagel Bites promotion, in which kids get free admission to the zoo if they bring a paying adult and two UPC bar codes from product packages. The offer is good through the end of the year. "The offer is being promoted on Radio Disney, which just started here," said Prisco.

On the other side of the country, the Frozen Food Council of North Carolina's execution of Cool Food involves four chains representing about 85% of the grocery business in the state, according to Peter Fulton, president of the council and vice president of perishables for Acosta-PMI Carolinas, Charlotte, N.C.

With cooperative advertising from Harris Teeter, Ingles Markets, Food Lion and Winn-Dixie Stores' Charlotte division, the council sent out a 16-page mailer to 1 million people, containing promotions for 22 frozen-food manufacturers, Fulton said. The direct mail piece was sent to the loyalty customer card base at Food Lion and Harris Teeter. For Ingles and Winn-Dixie, heavy consumers of frozen foods were targeted with the help of Spectra Marketing.

About $13 in coupons are inside the mailer. Fulton said redemption on direct mail coupons is 5% to 7% vs. about 1% on a freestanding insert, so the industry is moving to direct mail. "We are trying to get the most efficient use for our dollar," Fulton added.

Although the promotion involves a youth-related sweepstakes, the North Carolina council is promoting October more generally as Frozen Food Month.