THE BUYS OF SUMMER

RUSSELL REDMAN

Encouraged by favorable spring weather and restless consumers, grocery merchandisers say they're targeting a bigger share of summer dollars this year by jump-starting the season with more intensive marketing and a wider array of products.

Summer is still weeks away, but the impending avalanche of barbecues, picnics, clambakes and the like has grocers scrambling to fill aisles with cookout-related items and to devise ways to coax a few extra goods into shoppers' carts.

A number of chains already have begun to fortify their selection of summertime groceries -- especially soft drinks, disposable plates and cups, salty snacks, condiments and general merchandise. Over the coming months they plan a barrage of cross-merchandising, product tie-ins, themed displays, giveaways, and seasonal aisles and promotions.

"It seems like it's been getting earlier every year," Debra Lambert, corporate public affairs director at Safeway, Oakland, Calif., said about the summer promotional season. Heavy rains and a cold winter this year in California, Safeway's main trade area, have made consumers there eager for spring and summer, she said. "People are anxious to get outside." She declined to comment on Safeway's summer marketing plans.

In mid-April, a King Kullen superstore in Levittown, N.Y., inaugurated the summer selling season with a grouping of cookout items at the entrance of the grocery section. Products included Johnson Wax Off! insect repellent and citronella candles, Rubbermaid plastic ice chests and beverage jugs, Kingsford and King Kullen-brand charcoal, foam coolers, disposable and tabletop grills, stand-up barbecues and stackable plastic chairs.

"The middle of April is perfect because you come out of the high Easter sales and go right into the spring and summer," said Tony Zimbicki, director of grocery merchandising at Riser Foods, a Bedford Heights, Ohio-based wholesaler and retailer. A summer program was being set up in grocery areas of member stores to tie in food with general merchandise, including mini-grills, charcoal, plastic chairs and lighter fluid, he said.

"We also do a lot of cross-merchandising with the produce department with salad dressings," Zimbicki said. "But you have to be careful in cross-merchandising with produce because they're perishables."

In frozens, Riser plans to expand its Stop-n-Shop private-label ice cream by adding a premium line called Stop-n-Shop Premier. "We're going to do TV ads, newspaper ads and three levels of sampling. We're looking at that [ice cream] as a major draw," Zimbicki said.

Riser also was in the process of adding more footage to bottled water departments because of that category's outstanding sales last year, he said. The expansion was scheduled to finish in two weeks, he added.

Acme Markets of Virginia, North Tazewell, Va., began putting out more summer-oriented products in mid-April as well, according to Bob Downum, president. "We had Easter and summer items out at the same time," he said. "We've had pretty good weather so far this year."

"A lot of people don't realize that summer is another season like Christmas or Thanksgiving," he explained. "You create your demand by merchandising, and we've increased our sales."

Acme Markets will feature seasonal sections and a Wall of Values of cookout-related merchandise "to get people in the mood for summertime," Downum said. Product groupings will include ice chests, soft drinks, barbecue sauce, ketchup, mustard, buns, lawn chairs, paper plates and cups, charcoal, napkins, pickle chips, lighter fluid and small grills. Eye-catching signs, colorful streamers and summertime decor will be put up to draw customers' attention as they enter the store.

"We're pushing real hard on increasing general merchandise sales by cross-merchandising and catching people's attention," Downum said. "We've increased our inventories over last summer to push sales of all the summer items." He also expects to do more print advertising for summer goods, starting in early June. "When summertime hits its peak, we'll do a six-page ad instead of a four-page ad," he said.

Hot-selling items, he noted, include Ruffles low-fat potato chips and, particularly, contoured-bottle Coke. "It's just blowing out of there," he said.

Genuardi Super Markets, Norristown, Pa., also plans to spur general merchandise sales this summer, according to Joe Cunnane, grocery merchandiser and buyer. "This year we're going to be more aggressive than we ever have in the past. We are going to be more involved in marketing and merchandising [summer products]," Cunnane said. "We are going to increase variety, just really looking at every category and ensuring a wide selection."

A key tie-in will be barbecue sauce and marinades displayed alongside poultry, beef and seafood, he said, noting that manufacturers have added more flavors in recent years. "We're doing more extensive displays of those products," he said.

"Meat marinades are a good summertime item if people are looking for something different than hot dogs or hamburgers," said Lou Furcolo, direct-store-delivery merchandiser at Almacs Inc., East Providence, R.I., and Great American/Victory Markets, Utica, N.Y. Those retailers also will display barbecue sauce and marinades with meat, he said.

A three-month summer program, from mid-May to mid-August, is planned and will include promotional and themed displays, such as beverage endcaps and picnic tables as props, Furcolo said. Endcap units, for example, will feature two kinds of beer and two kinds of wine coolers, which will be rotated monthly, he said. Salty snacks such as potato chips will be tied in, too.

"As far as I can see, we're going after more sales this summer. We're putting up more displays and making a real effort to draw the customer to the value items," he explained. "It's a lot of impulse buying during the summer."

Bottled ice teas and fruit-flavored soft drinks like Fruitopia were strong sellers last year and will get prominent play again this year, Furcolo added. "I think what spurred that were the cold merchandising units that we put in the stores," he said. "Cold equipment has become a prominent piece of equipment in stores today."

Like Almacs and Great American, Gerland's Food Fair, Houston, plans to push soft drinks with endcap displays, according to Jim Blakesley, vice president of grocery merchandising. "We devote one end to each brand of soda and another to what we have on sale," he said, adding that potato chips will be merchandised with soda. "The chips and sodas are what we're really big on in the summer," he said. Gatorade and PowerAde will be key beverage displays as well.

"We do a lot of tie-in displays, with hot dog and burger buns, paper plates, etc.," Blakesley said. For instance, he said, charcoal is placed at the foot of the meat case, with signs indicating where it is. Coupons and ads in newspapers will promote summer specials, he added.

Magruder Inc., Rockville, Md., plans to mix cross-merchandising with some creativity, said Dan Hemp, merchandising director. Such items as mayonnaise, relish, dressing, pickles, disposable cups and plates, chips, cookies, toothpicks, briquets and barbecue sauce will be grouped in an aisle near the produce area, so customers seeking fresh salads, fruits and vegetables -- popular during warm weather -- will see them.

"We try to put them in what we call a seasonal run. It'll take anywhere from a 45- to 60-foot run, depending on the size of the store," he said, noting that beer and soda also may be tied in. "You put together the things that are naturals.

"Cross-merchandising is where it's at. Hiding it is not going to sell it," he added.

Accompanying the summer section will be displays depicting summer themes, featuring such props as a barbecue, bats and balls, beach towels or a raft, Hemp said. "Every store manager knows you have to use a little imagination," he explained. "Just having sales is not going to sell the merchandise."

Signs and other promotional materials from manufacturers also will be used, including a point-of-purchase display from Hershey that will showcase its line of toppings next to the ice cream, Hemp said. New types of barbecue sauce, particularly honey mustard, and new flavors of Kool-Aid should do well this year, he said.

Giveaways will be a key marketing tool for Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., a Charleston Heights, S.C.-based wholesaler and retailer, said Tradd Newton, grocery buyer. Those might include free grills, charcoal or barbecue sauce with purchases of summertime goods. "We just had a spring cookout kickoff sale," Newton said. "We may run a free charcoal ad."

Manufacturer promotions will bolster those efforts as well, he said, noting that Piggly Wiggly is doing a Summer Olympics program with Coke and a NASCAR auto racing promotion with Coors. The latter features life-size cardboard cutouts of professional racers standing by stacks of Coors beer. In fact, he added, one store built an abstract race car using Coors 12-packs.

Lobby displays and product tie-ins round out the company's plans for this summer. "Nothing really different, just staying aggressive and keeping up with everyone else," Newton said.

One chain doing something different, however, is Bashas' Markets, Chandler, Ariz. Because of Arizona's sizzling heat, people don't want to leave their air-conditioned homes, and supermarket sales typically drop during the summer, said Becca Anderson, Bashas' public relations director. So the company has started home delivery of groceries for its 32 Phoenix-area stores.

"It will be interesting to see whether that will help summer sales," she said. The delivery charge will be $5. Testing began in April and received solid press coverage, she said. "Probably the first of May we'll come in with advertising."

In the summer, barbecue-related goods aren't as popular in Arizona as they are in other states, Anderson said. "When it's 118 degrees, you don't want to go outside and cook a burger. The summer is our winter; it's when you stay inside," she explained.

Shoppers brave enough to leave their homes and venture into stores, though, will be greeted with ice cream samples -- especially premium private labels -- and cool-themed point-of-purchase displays depicting waterfalls and containing soft drinks on ice, she said.

Grocery merchandisers say they plan to promote both private labels and national brands vigorously this summer. However, sales of each brand type will depend on the category, noted Dale Monson, corporate director of grocery merchandising at Cub Foods, Stillwater, Minn.

Products like barbecue sauce, baked beans, condiments, salty snacks and carbonated soft drinks likely will have higher national-brand sales, he said. "In these categories, we are probably promoting more of the national brands because their sales are greater."

Private-label sales tend to be higher for napkins, cups, plates, utensils and similar disposable items, Monson said. "There isn't as much of a brand loyalty in those types of items," he explained.

Downum of Acme of Virginia pointed out that private labels and national brands can feed off each other during the summer. For example, he said, Pepsi had a sale on 2-liter bottles, and Acme put its Rocky Top soda in an adjacent display.

Like other chains, Cub also plans to team general merchandise with food this summer, with such goods as marshmallows, pickles and mustard in the same aisle as grill scrapers and paper plates and cups, Monson said. Bottled ice tea and water, sports and fruit drinks, and 24-pack carbonated soft drinks will be highlighted, he said.

Most of the key summer product categories registered dollar sales gains last year, according to data compiled by Nielsen North America, Schaumburg, Ill. Those generating hefty increases were liquid tea (52.5%), frozen desserts (42.4%), pretzels (17.6%) and frozen yogurt (13.7%). Also showing sizable gains were meat marinades and tenderizers (9%), charcoal (7.5%), disposable dishes (5.2%) and dill pickles (5.1%).