RETAILER USES POPULAR BRAND TO BOOST SEAFOOD SALES

ROSEANNE HARPER

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Two Thriftway stores here have hooked up with a locally revered seafood company to reel in big sales.

Several factors have played a part in the success story that has seen sales double in the last year and a half, said Kevin Stormans, one of the owners of the stores -- -Ralph's Thriftway and Bayview Thriftway here.

The high quality of the product and the good reputation of Tacoma, Wash.-based Johnny's Seafood, are the major ingredients, he added. Yet also, as part of a remodeling of both stores, the company provided more space for merchandising a larger variety of product and, for the first time, added service to the seafood and meat counters.

"We knew that we could be doing a better job with seafood. Our customers were interested. They told us they wanted more choices, and that quality was hugely important to them. So we looked around to see who was doing the best job with seafood, and we interviewed a lot of people. The Johnny's name is known around here, and we liked what we saw there. Their quality is tops, and now we're able to offer more variety," Stormans said.

About a year and a half ago, the retailer -- as it began a major remodeling of both stores -- took the opportunity to expand display space for seafood. That's when it brought Johnny's on board.

"Seafood is a difficult category to make money on. So we knew we had to have the best and give our customers the variety they wanted. I'd say we quadrupled display space in both stores. In one, seafood now has 16 feet; in the other, about 20 feet. Before that [the remodeling], seafood had had just a multi-deck in part of the meat case," Stormans said.

Now, although one manager oversees both meat and seafood, seafood clearly has its own domain. Storman described the merchandising setup.

"We've created a niche within our stores with Johnny's. It's the highest quality and a recognized brand. We have cases in which the top part is service, and then the three decks below it are self-service. During the day, when we have someone behind the counter, I'd say 90% of sales are service, but in the evening customers can pick the product up pre-wrapped."

On the top shelf of the case, seafood is displayed on ice, and the decks below hold black trays of product with a film overwrap. Behind the case, a large blue-and-white sign says, "Johnny's Seafood."

"Our people are talking to customers all day long about seafood, and they let them know that that product on the self-service decks is the same product that they see on ice. In the evening, we close the upper part of the case down," Stormans said.

However, he underscored the importance of the display on ice during the day.

"We know that presentation is important. We know the product is best displayed on ice, and we wanted to have quality that went beyond anybody else's."

It's paying off. Not only have seafood sales at least doubled in the last 18 months, but seafood and meat are making up 20% of store sales, and customers keep telling Stormans' front-liners they're glad they can buy Johnny's products in the store.

In a marketplace where the competition includes Albertsons and Fred Meyer, as well as Quality Food Centers, Stormans could worry about price sensitivity, but he doesn't. He pointed out that his customers are willing to pay a little more for the quality they're getting. In fact, that's his edge.

It's that appreciation of quality that makes the Johnny's-Stormans' Thrift-way partnership so successful, Gary Gerontis, Johnny's president, told SN.

"It works two ways. We buy only the best seafood. We won't buy a No. 2 product, and we make it clear [to our customers] that we don't play any price games. Still, we're pretty competitive. This is a good partnership with Kevin and his brother. They're good guys to work with. They understand the value of quality. Their stores are beautiful, and they're eager to be the best," Gerontis said.

With some products there can be as much as a $1-a-pound differential [wholesale] between a so-so seafood item and a top-quality one. Yet such a difference never deters the Stormans from choosing quality, he explained.

Johnny's Seafood is a family-owned wholesale distributor that has built its reputation over the last 50 years, and consequently has cultivated good relationships with its vendors and its customers, Gerontis said. When Alaska salmon season is in, for instance, Johnny's is able to get the product off the ship as soon as it docks and fly the fish in the same day, instead of barging it in, Gerontis said.

Johnny's primarily services food-service establishments, many of them multi-star, white-tablecloth restaurants from Tacoma to Seattle. Some of those restaurants make a point of telling customers they use only Johnny's seafood, and Johnny's has three freestanding retail stores of its own that have loyal customers. That's how area consumers have come to know the name and trust it, Gerontis said.

In this time-pressed era, too, many consumers are reluctant to cook at all, and they can be particularly leery about preparing seafood, both Gerontis and Stormans noted. That's where service as well as quality comes into the picture.

"Johnny's has helped us train our seafood associates so they can talk knowledgeably to our customers about the products," Stormans said.