RETAILER'S GRADUATION CAKE SALES SOAR IN SPITE OF SNAGS

ROSEANNE HARPER

MINOT, N.D. - Marketplace Food & Drug's cake department didn't allow one problem after another to put a crimp in sales this graduation season, officials told SN.

The department's crew kept taking cake orders, in spite of being down three associates and being hit with computer troubles that could have hobbled their photo cake business.

The decorating team, led by cake department manager and prize-winning decorator Nyla Stromberg, worked round the clock for nearly three weeks and turned out more cakes than last year, which had tipped 1,000.

"We knew we'd get through it all, and we did," Stromberg said. "We produced more than 1,000 graduation cakes, up slightly from last year, and our dollar sales were up 14% year-to-date."

Good planning certainly came into play because the department was ahead of its production schedule by one day when trouble hit.

"We needed that extra day. We made good use of it. We put a red flag out and people responded wonderfully," Stromberg said.

Associates from other departments helped out with non-decorating chores and two vendors - Rich Products and General Mills/Pillsbury - flew in field representatives from Minneapolis to help out.

For nearly two weeks, representatives from both manufacturers rolled up their sleeves and worked eight- and 10-hour days alongside Stromberg's staffers.

"The first thing one of them did was produce a lot of back-stock production cakes and get them into the case," Stromberg said. "She just got to work, making racks and racks of them, and filled the case so we wouldn't lose any of those sales. Then, both of them helped with the decorating."

Already short-staffed, the department temporarily lost another associate due to a family emergency. On the same day, the printing heads on the department's two printers self-destructed within a half hour of each other.

"Naturally, we tried to fix them, tried to get them fixed, but they were gone."

Stromberg said she, as well as everybody else, was visibly upset for about 10 minutes. Then they got back to work.

New printers were ordered, but seriously stormy weather in another part of the country delayed their shipment. Meanwhile, another vendor came through. He overnighted a printer via FedEx from Minneapolis.

Everybody these days, it seems, wants photographs on their graduation cakes, so it was crucial the department got the right printing equipment to do the job.

"I'd say nearly 85% want pictures," Stromberg said. "Five years ago, it would have not even been half that. The usual is to have a baby picture or kindergarten picture along with the current graduation picture. Sometimes, they want more than two."

Graduations are big business for the store's bakery. While Minot (pronounced MY-not) is a small town that's home to no more that 35,000 people, it has a central high school that buses in students from a wide area. Often, the school's graduating class totals upward of 600. Then, there are private and Catholic schools nearby and a college in town.

As in past years, Marketplace Food & Drug rented a refrigerated, semi trailer to house the finished cakes until customers picked them up.

"We filled the semi up twice," Stromberg said.

Even there, the team hit some bumps. As associates were rolling racks of cakes out to the semi in the parking lot, they hit a break in the pavement, causing two fully decorated cakes to teeter and then to literally bite the dust.

"We just started over and did those cakes again," Stromberg said.

To keep things organized in the semi, and to hand out the cakes as customers came to pick them up, the daughter of another department employee was recruited.

"Everybody pitched in," Stromberg said.

It's no exaggeration that they worked around the clock. In fact, at 7 in the evening, Stromberg set two people to base-icing cake after cake. Then two more would come in at 2 in the morning.

"We overlapped some hours and then at 5 in the morning, I came in. So did some others. We all worked long days."

In the midst of the graduation rush, the department also turned out five wedding cakes and lots of birthday and special occasion cakes. Nobody's order was late.

"Even with all that was going on, our customers would not have known anything unusual was happening," Stromberg said.

She, as do other officials at the family-owned chain, based in Bemidji, Minn., take customer service very seriously. In fact, they say it gives them a necessary edge, especially here at the chain's 90,000-square-foot flagship store. A Wal-Mart SuperCenter is about to move in next month, just two miles down the road.

The store's cake department is already in high gear again - for wedding season now.

"We had someone come in yesterday and ask if we had such a thing as a mini wedding cake. We don't, but I made them one right then and there," Stromberg said.

She set about putting a five-inch, round layer on top of an eight-inch layer, iced it all in white, and then trailed white, fondant roses over it.

With 25 years experience decorating cakes, Stromberg has taken top honors in a number of competitions. Most recently, she came home this winter from the Upper Midwest Bakers' Convention, in Rochester, Minn., with a gold medal and People's Choice award for a wedding cake that was named best out of 82 entries. A few years ago, at the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association's Cake Decorating Challenge, Stromberg chalked up a second-place win.