Location! Location! Location!
How often have you heard the saying, “the market value of your home is primarily the result of three things — Location … Location … Location!”. Well, as it turns out, the very same statement can be made when it comes to the role that relative humidity plays in determining the best way to store and display fresh meat, poultry, and seafood in refrigerated service display cases. A recent research work, fully accepted and published in the journal Food Control, has verified that fact. The study compared four different refrigerated service display case technologies, each utilizing either convective, conductive, or [...]
Inspiration to Integration, Supermarket Sense Has It All
Excellence doesn’t materialize in isolation. It’s the result of sharing ideas, participating in discussions, sketching out fresh objectives, and drafting a plan for execution. Supermarket Sense is designed with all of this in mind for you and your food retail organization. Finding inspiration is simple in an opportune environment. Soak up the latest on food trends, sample flavorful juices, and open your mind to new perspectives about how to keep your store relevant in the current market. Discover new menu ideas, explore how meal kits can impact your bottom line, and consider how you can introduce new flavors to your [...]
Supermarkets Give Meal Kits Staying Power
With $2B in annual sales, meal kits have made a splash in the food retail industry. Subscription services are already challenged with retention because customers are selective. They want convenience without sacrificing nutrition, cost, flavor, or variety, and those are tall orders for the subscription business model. Supermarkets, on the other hand, can give meal kits true staying power simply because of easy access to resources. Furthermore, you can leverage meal kits to open the gateway to more cooking by your shoppers. Supermarket Sense is the place to set your sights on how kits fit into your profit plan. One [...]
What Makes the OWIZV Island So Great – Infographic
Wide island configuration offers increased product capacity either alone or with OWEZV end cap. Double bin design for frozen food, ice cream and medium-temperature applications with dual-temperature capability. Endless merchandising opportunities to create fresh.
Food Safety: Kryptonite or Superpower?
No one likes to think about shoppers falling ill after buying something from or visiting your store. But the threat is real and needs to be addressed with education and proper protocols. Food safety should be top-of-mind for any store owner or manager. Start your education by joining ServSafe Certified Trainer, Michael Williams, for his talk about foodborne illness prevention. Knowledge of basic food safety, the importance of employee personal hygiene, and what types of pathogens and toxins your store is exposed to can go a long way in avoiding the spread of illness. Acknowledging the trickiest areas of your [...]
Pop-up Kitchens Put Food Back in the Spotlight
Modern supermarkets bring new demands -- perimeter planning, shopper engagement, shrink management, and more. When attention is divided into so many areas it’s easy to forget who the star of your store really is — the food! Shoppers come to your store simply seeking foods they can easily purchase and eat. It’s time to put food back in the spotlight and pop-up kitchens may be the solution you’ve been seeking. The back of your store is no place for all the food, especially when it comes to prepared meals. Gone are the days of shoppers being content with picking up [...]
Market Trends – HIGH-VOLTAGE CAKE DESIGN – Choosing a Display to Make It Shine
The opportunities to share images offered by social media sites and apps like Snapchat, Pinterest, and Facebook create an insatiable demand for new content, and one consistent object of users’ interest is expected to attract even more attention this year — cakes. New decorations and designs will incorporate influences from both modern technology and 80s nostalgia. The holidays are a time of the year where inspiration is most sought after. “If you look at platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, one of the most popular categories of ‘pins’ is cakes,” says Tom Vierhile, innovation insights director at research firm Canadean, which [...]
Grab-and-Go Packaging – Convenience is King
As busy lives get busier, more consumers are moving away from traditional meal times and toward unscheduled snacking that can occur at any time of day. They’re increasingly interested in snacks with the same high level of quality and freshness they expect from other prepared foods, and that creates opportunities for retailers. Fresh packaged snacks are a space where restaurants and convenience stores can’t easily compete. A snack program can be expanded with limited space, and repackaging existing food offerings in snack portions can build on your existing processes. Value can be added to simple snacks using fresh ingredients or [...]
Promoting Healthy Meal Options in Fresh Prepared Departments
Unique food merchandising displays elevate a supermarket’s fresh prepared, deli and bakery departments. These displays help sell the delicious and savory products retailers pride themselves on creating, but also give shoppers a taste of something new and different that they may not normally eat or buy. The IDDBA 19 Show and What’s in Store Live Booth offered creative merchandising ideas for retailers to bring back to their stores and put into action! So, when they showcased the front of the deli with 16’ of Hilphoenix SMG service cases focused on life-changing eating programs such as Keto, Vegan, Whole 30 and [...]
Your customers should understand sustainable refrigeration just enough to care
By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC The difference between mediocre communication and compelling communication lies in your message’s credibility, appeal, relevance, and distinctiveness. However, just like in refrigeration, when you fail to look at the whole picture, you wind up changing certain elements only to bring others out of whack. You lower your head pressure to save energy, but in doing so you lose heat reclaim capacity, which uses more energy, which brings you right back to square one. Similarly, in communication, overdoing it on one element, like distinctiveness, makes it harder to achieve another element, like credibility. [...]