SUNDAE DRIVERS

AMITY K. MOORE

New merchandising racks, new products and inclusion of category items in frequent shopper programs are some of the factors retailers are banking on to scoop up more sales of ice cream toppings this year.

There's perhaps no category in the store more reliant on effective merchandising than the ice cream toppings segment. After all, most -- if not all -- of the category's products can only be used with other items.

While they admit the ice cream toppings category isn't a traffic generator, supermarket buyers and merchandisers told SN they strive to make sure these products are

in front of shoppers' eyes at critical points in the shopping pattern.

Nob Hill Foods, Gilroy, Calif., is attempting to boost its toppings sales through a new merchandising rack.

Bridgette Jones, Nob Hill's spokeswoman, said the 26-store chain is switching to freestanding wire racks that fit over the freezer case, leaving enough space so customers can still see the ice cream.

The rack holds several shelves that can be used to merchandise items such as toppings, cones, bananas or nuts. A sign atop the rack will read, "Now Every Day Is a Sundae." True to the motto, all the ice cream accoutrements cross-merchandised on the rack are ingredients that are often a part of sundaes.

Jones said displaying toppings near the ice cream was key to driving sales, but she added it also was important to tie in toppings with ice cream in special advertisements.

This year, some retailers noted, new products will likely bring new buyers to the category.

"There's been new flavors like apple pie a la mode," said Chuck Jones, senior buyer at Scolari's Food & Drug Co., Sparks, Nev. "Hershey's has also come out with a shell topping and Mrs. Richardson has come out with a few new flavors and so forth. So there's been a little bit more activity in it this year than there has been in previous years," he said.

The fat-free craze has not skipped this segment.

"In the toppings now, Hershey's offer fat-free hot fudge, " said Ross Padalino, candy and grocery buyer at Associated Grocers of Alabama, Birmingham, Ala.

"There is a new shell topping that they have come out with," he added. "They have different flavors -- a Reese's shell topping and a regular Hershey's shell topping."

"The one thing I've noticed over the last year is that it's gotten to be a very active category," Scolari's Jones said. "There's gotten to be a lot of new item presentations and introductions in it." The role of the ice cream toppings category is clearly one of a profit generator, retailers told SN.

"It's not something that draws people into the store like ice cream will draw people," said Carol Obaugh, senior director of procurement at Ukrop's Super Markets, Richmond, Va. "Toppings is something that's more impulse. I don't think its a price item. This is something on which you can lower the price 25% and still make a decent profit."

At Foodland Super Market, Honolulu, merchandisers, aware of the profit margins, place ice cream toppings at eye level. "I have it on the top of three shelves above the ice cream cones," said Craig Yoneshige, assistant director of grocery operations.

"The good margins certainly don't hurt the level of merchandising," said a buyer from a Southeast chain.

However, to merchandise well and benefit from sweet margins, retailers need help from manufacturers, Scolari's Jones said.

"Price is not that critical, because people, if they're going to buy the topping, they're going to buy it. It's not something they have to have on ice cream. Because of that I think there's some margin in there for the manufacturers to do promotions," Jones said.

He said manufacturers should run promotions in which consumers could, for example, buy two half-gallons of ice cream and get 50 cents off a topping, or buy two jars of any kind of topping and get a half-gallon of ice cream free.

Most retailers, including Barbara Page, public relations manager at Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y., agreed that the category -- comprising everything from hot fudge sauce to sprinkles to fruits -- should be merchandised in an area adjacent to ice cream.

In an effort to boost its toppings sales this summer, Price Chopper is planning to increase its ad activity and to do more cross-merchandising in the frozens aisle, Page said.

The source at the Southwest chain said he increases the number of ice cream displays during the summer. "We'll do more shippers and more displays than we did last year," he said. He advised retailers to take advantage of promoting during the summer months. "You have that short time frame for the summer and you need to stay on top of it -- promote it heavily during that time frame," the buyer said.

Ukrop's Obaugh said his stores' ice cream and ice cream toppings promotions began in April because of the warm weather then. "We always have in-store specials on them all summer long," he said. "It starts in around April.

"We have regular newspaper ads, and sometimes if a customer is on our Valued Customer Coupon for the month, [toppings] will be in there. In the summer months, almost every month we'll have Smuckers or Hershey's or somebody in there," Obaugh added. The Valued Customer Coupon, he explained, is a monthly mailer sent to 280,000 households.

Seaway Food Town, Maumee, Ohio, has a preferred shopper program as well. "We'll probably promote [toppings] with that customer discount card as opposed to the many secondary displays we have had in the past," said Jacquie Holmes, a buyer with the chain.

In addition to merchandising toppings in secondary displays near the ice cream area, Seaway has tried cross-merchandising some toppings in the produce department.

"I'm not sure that it really increased sales that much more last year. It's a cute idea. I like it for merchandising, but we're not enforcing that this year with our stores," Holmes said.

Scolari's has experienced some slow sales with toppings in the past due to where it merchandised the products. "At times they have been merchandised in the jam and jelly sections of the store, but it doesn't really do anything over there," Jones said. "We found if you don't put it by the ice cream, it doesn't sell at all." Jones said he now merchandises the toppings category at the end of the ice cream freezer section in a gondola by itself. He and other retailers said they increase their ice cream topping sales during the summer months by running special promotions.

"When we do some promoting with ice cream, we set up stacks of nuts and different produce items sometimes near it," Jones said. "I think in August of this year, they will have what they call Sundae on Sunday or Sundae for Sunday, something to that effect. They promote the ice cream and the toppings and the nuts and the bananas and so forth on a Sunday [newspaper ad]," Jones said.

Wholesalers like Associated Grocers of Alabama have been able to involve themselves with promotions during the summer months as well. "We offer off-invoice promotions, cost promotions. That's accelerated during the summer months," Padalino said.

"Surprisingly, Easter is one of the best ice cream months of the year. I don't know why. Fourth of July is on top, but Easter is always an excellent ice cream selling month. That would have to flow right into toppings," he added.

Byerly's, Edina, Minn., does not push ice cream toppings. "We heavily promote our own ice cream, but we promote it on its own merits and generally don't do any toppings with it," said John Kobs, grocery manager at one of the company's stores.