BIG DISPLAY SPURS BIG PICK-A-MIX SALES

LISA SAXTON

QUINCY, Ill. -- A Supervalu retailer here sold more than 2,000 cases of E. J. Brach's Pick-a-Mix candy from a single store in a three-week period.

The retailer, Niemann Foods here, sold the candy as part of E.J. Brach's Summer Safari promotion from a record-setting mass display of the product.

The display, which used 3,000 cases of product, was centered around a jungle safari theme, complete with a four-wheel drive vehicle and stuffed jungle animals. It was set up in Niemann's Urbana County Market store with the help of Supervalu's J.M. Jones division and the PMI Brokerage Co.

"It really drew a lot of excitement to the store. It was something new and gave the store a sense of theater," said Rex Jensen, regional sales manager at the J.M. Jones division. Jim Cox, the manager of County Market, Niemann's warehouse format store, was equally as enthusiastic about the promotion. He said that in the three-week time period, approximately 2,250 of the 3,000 cases were sold. The remaining 750 cases were divvied up among three other Niemann units.

And the key to those sales, Cox said, was the attractive price of 99-cents a pound, which was printed in large type on the mammoth display to encourage impulse purchases. The typical price range for Pick-a-Mix bulk candy is $1.49 to $1.89, he added.

"We're a price operator and it helped us establish that image," said Cox. "And when we put up the display, it was amazing the percent of customers that bought Pick-a-Mix that maybe hadn't before. Probably everybody that came through the checkouts had Pick-a-Mix in their cart."

That's because 3,000 cases of candy in the front of the produce department was hard to miss. "Most of the people probably wouldn't have bought [the candy] if it hadn't been for the size of the display and the uniqueness of it," he said.

Cox said the success of the display was mostly due to word of mouth.