SIMPLE ADVISE

MINA WILLIAMS

When it comes to communicating with consumers about produce, the advice from the experts is to keep it simple.

Basic information on produce items is still what shoppers want most, according to retailers, other produce industry sources and consumer trend-watchers.

While debate continues in the halls of industry and government about ways to deliver information about country of origin, pesticides, waxes, organic status and so on, industry folks in the market told SN it's the fundamentals that consumers are asking about in the stores: how to select produce, how to prepare specific items and what unfamiliar items taste like.

What's more, they said, satisfying those more basic educational needs is usually the best way to reap rewards in customer loyalty and increased sales.

"Consumers want to know what to do with various fruits and vegetables, how to cook or prepare them," said Joanne Gage, vice president of consumer and marketing services at Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y. "And they want storing and selecting tips."

Gage said they also want to know how produce tastes, putting her finger on the best lesson that, through sampling, the produce department as classroom can impart.

"We do as many demos as we can, putting produce items into a form that customers can try," said Steve Junqueiro, director of produce and floral at Save Mart Supermarkets, Modesto, Calif. "We educate consumers at the point of sale, as long as it can be done tastefully."

Save Mart Supermarkets also puts tools such as institutional information from commodity boards, recipes and histories about various produce items to work for it in its consumer education efforts.

"But there is room for more," Junqueiro said.

The sources agreed that consumer education at its simplest should quickly and clearly teach what an item is and how it should be prepared.

"From a consumer's point of view what is needed is more basic information on produce, pui into a point-of-purchase format," said Dick Spezzano, Spezzano Consulting Services, Monrovia, Calif. A recent weekly advertising circular from Dominick's Finer Foods, Northlake, Ill., fills the bill, and happens to concentrate on arguably the quintessential produce education challenge: the fresh mango. The piece identifies three varieties of mangoes, shows a color picture of what mangoes look like; and, even better, illustrates a piece of the fruit cut and ready to be eaten.

"Consumers want assurances for risk reduction," said Mona Doyle, an expert on consumer research and president of Consumer Network, Philadelphia.

And when she says risk reduction, she's not talking about micro-organisms. "They want to know that they aren't going to throw their money away. They want to know how to select produce items."

Retailers should make it their mission to help their shoppers with such basics, because, "after all, an educated produce customer will buy more produce," she said.

"There are a lot of assumptions made. Retailers carry 150 things, but only 10% of the customers know what to do with most of it. Retailers have to empower people to expand produce usage."

With such refrains in mind, retailers, growers and commodity groups are wielding effective communications tools that range from toll-free consumer hot lines, to Web sites full of useful tips and recipes, to point-of-sale materials and signage and in-department sampling and demonstrations.

Smart retailers continue to step up signage and sampling programs for many produce items. Many are relying on the tried-and-true recipe element, to engage consumers to explore an unfamiliar item, said Kevin Dunleavy, vice president for Try Foods International, an Orlando, Fla.-based firm, which manufactures point-of-purchase materials.

However, Dunleavy cautioned that recipes presented within the produce department cannot be cookbook-oriented. They must be simple, using a bare minimum of ingredients that are fast and easy to prepare, he said.

For precut packaged items, the piece of information that consumers are looking for most may be the sell-by or use-by date. "It is important to them," said Gage of Price Chopper.

One of the simplest consumer messages related to produce, and one that is winning over consumers after a long commitment by many in the industry, is the Produce for Better Health Foundation's 5 a Day campaign. Awareness of the benefits of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables is up significantly and retailers are key components as conduits to reach consumers at the point of purchase.

Talk about basic. "The 5 a Day message educates consumers that they should eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day," noted Cathy Means, vice president of the Produce Marketing Association, Newark, Del., which has supported the national project from the start. "More than that doesn't cut it; people need a goal to strive for."

While retailers contacted by SN declined to discuss how the 5 a Day campaign has boosted sales, one Midwestern retailer did comment that if this consumer education program has not been paying off, retailers would have shed it long ago.

Beginning with the 1995 launch of the 5 a Day Destination Stop program, the foundation has tracked its own efforts, however, and says that research proves that the program does affect sales.

A 12-week test involving 32 Marsh Supermarkets units in Indianapolis and Winn-Dixie Stores units in Orlando, Fla., tracked produce sales of stores employing the Destination Stop campaign -- which centers on a large marquee-style sign suspended in the produce department. Brochures, demos, tastings, cards and stickers round out the effort.

The research compared sales in those stores to volume in stores that did not use the materials. The study found that units with a fully implemented Destination Stop program increased department sales 8.8%. Additionally, department sales for stores with the program experienced a 13.8% increase during the final four weeks of the test period.

"It seems to say, the longer retailers do consumer educational programs, the bigger bang for the buck," said Robb Enright, manager of public relations at the Produce for Better Health Foundation, Wilmington, Del. "We quantified that consumer education does increase sales and over time it increases sales more."

Industry experts also say that basic nutritional information is sought after by consumers.

Surprisingly, detailed breakdowns of the vitamin and mineral content of specific produce items are not what consumers seem to want, said retailers. In their race through the store, consumers want fast facts, usually on groups of commodities, such as apples or oranges, and not on specific varieties.

"Consumers need to know that everything is good," said consultant Spezzano. "They want to know what an item is a significant source of, and some interesting things about the product."

"They are looking for nutritional labeling in a fashion that is most needed," said the PMA's Means. "Retailers can start with the Top 20 fruits and the Top 20 vegetables" -- and indeed, most have been providing such information at the store level for years, in compliance with voluntary federal guidelines.

One Western retailer agreed that the nutritional breakdown for, say, fresh ginger, herbs or prickly pear is meaningless to most consumers.

On the other hand, presenting where certain crops are grown is being used by some chains to communicate a variety of messages to consumers. Touting foreign imports, for example, boasts to consumers that a chain has the buying power to pull products from the four corners of the earth, even if the item is out of season in a particular locale.

Identifying locally grown crops, in turn, informs consumers that the retailer supports local agriculture and desires to present the freshest possible items that are shipped only a few hundred miles.

Positioning offerings from prime domestic growing regions can demonstrate that a retailer wants to give customers the freshest, the first of the crop.

"It used to be that produce was seasonal. Not now," said Price Chopper's Gage. "Everything is coming from all over the world, all year long. We communicate with our consumers using more point-of-sale signs. Country of origin has come up, more than pesticide issues. The questions are coming from a small segment of the population, but it is a growing issue."

According to Means of the PMA, there seems to be little evidence of a consistent clamoring among consumers for country-of-origin labeling. "But for those consumers who do have questions, retailers should be able to get answers."

Whether they are crying for it or not, lessons on the use of pesticides are an education that consumers will get, as mandated by the Food Quality Protection Act. The Environmental Protection Agency will publish pesticide information in brochure form that retailers will disseminate at the store level.

The EPA issued a draft during the public-comment period. "The draft which we saw earlier was a little bit too alarmist for our taste," said the PMA's Means.

Industry sources said this Consumers Right to Know brochure is expected to be available in stores by August. In the meantime, the PMA has a fact sheet on pesticide residues that it makes available to retailers, said Means.

"Pesticides and food-safety issues have to be carefully handled," said Dunleavy of Try Foods. "The challenge to the industry is letting customers know that the food is safe and handled properly, without alarming them that it possibly could not be."

"We are not being inundated with questions on pesticides," said Price Chopper's Gage. "Consumers have gotten the message and know to wash produce items."

All these consumer efforts would be ineffectual if produce clerks and managers did not receive the product information to answer consumers' questions rack-side, industry experts agreed.

"Clerks need tools," said Dunleavy. "No one wants to sound stupid, so they often simply avoid customer contact at all cost. Simple guidebooks and posters identifying items can turn stock people into salespeople." "[Stores associates] need to know what to do with the items they are offering for sale, or where to go to get the information for the consumer," said Means. "Consumers depend on retailers for information. Consumers expect them to have information."

Generally, industry experts agreed that retailers, growers and commodity groups are communicating well with consumers, at least on the basics.

What could use more emphasis, however, is the industry's own story, of where the product comes from and how it gets to market in fresh, wholesome condition.

"One thing the farmers do a poor job of is telling consumers how good they are," said Spezzano. "They are efficiently working the land with significantly less acreage as farmland. They have learned to work with less water, pesticides and fungicides."

More Organic Effort

Teaching consumers about value-added produce items and organic selections may not be as easy as A-B-C, said industry experts, but at least a certain segment of consumers is hungry for more such information on those categories, they said, and the produce department is a good place to feed it to them.

"There are opportunities for more consumer materials with prepackaged produce," said Mona Doyle, president of the Consumer Network, Philadelphia. "There is space readily available to tell consumers what items can be combined to make a quick meal."

"Consumers know that packaged salads are convenient; what they need more information on is how to use them," said Steve Junqueiro, director of produce and floral at Save Mart Supermarkets, Modesto, Calif. "Storage and handling information is needed. They need to know how important it is to keep the cold chain intact.

"And it's not their fault if we don't tell them. Our job is not done and we are not satisfied, until the customer has enjoyed the product," Junqueiro said.

According to Robin Sprague, corporate communications manager for precut supplier Fresh Express Farms, Salinas, Calif., the best educator is the quality of the product itself. "Freshness is key. You can't communicate freshness; you have to deliver it."

Organics have quite a different road to hoe. With no national standard, what organic means in one place may not apply in another location, and that is proving confusing for some consumers, retailers said.

Washington insiders expect a revised draft of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposed rules to surface by the end of this year.

Despite the slow pace of government action, the popularity of organics continues to climb, according to industry sources.

"There is a strong demand for organics," said Joanne Gage, vice president of consumer and marketing services at Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y. "There is a younger generation asking for organics and a general growth of vegetarianism. The tough part is letting consumers know about products, how to choose them and how to cook them."