Greetings, produce professionals, and welcome to the produce department!
As summer winds down, we are looking ahead to some cooler weather sales opportunities, and while the coming months will see our departments full of apples and pears heading into fall, today let's shell out some vegetable love with a good old-fashioned produce department staple—the bell pepper!
One of the things I love about seeing bell pepper displays (or the entire pepper category, really) is the myriad of colors these provide. Walking into a department and seeing a big colorful display of peppers gets me thinking about what could be for dinner tonight. Bell peppers truly scream versatility with their many uses, whether that's in salads, roasting, stuffing, sautéing or grilling — or, if you are like me, cutting one in half and eating out of hand. Just a perfect snack!
Bell peppers are, in my mind, a relatively lower-maintenance commodity and offer high-tonnage possibilities, but there are still some best practices to follow to keep each display fresh and as successful as possible. As with all produce commodities, proper backroom receiving and rotating operations are essential and a great place to start.
Pick a perfect place for putting peppers
Very much like their culinary uses, bell peppers are a very versatile commodity when it comes to merchandising. While they are often merchandised in the cold cases in the dry vegetable sections of the case, they also do very well outside of cold cases on tables and dry racks, when properly maintained. This is where I have found the most success in working with them.
Bell peppers are indeed a temperature-sensitive commodity and having them in cases that are too cold for prolonged periods of time could potentially reduce shelf life, especially with green peppers. The best practice I have found success with is having them in two places: a couple of cases or so (volume of store varying) in your counter cases and a satellite display elsewhere in the department. High-traffic-area endcaps, euros, dry field bins and A-frames are all great places to merchandise bell peppers.
Commodity coloring book
As stated above, bell peppers are a visual superstar! Their colors really brighten up the aisle and the displays that they rest on. Large displays of bell peppers offer great optics for your consumers and are a super impressive display to see and shop. They also offer great color contrasts to other vegetables that they nicely pair with. Asparagus, artichokes, garlic, zucchini and summer squashes, cauliflower, eggplant and broccoli (the list is endless) are all great display partners with bell peppers, offer complete meal ideas for customers and build basket size for the produce department.
Realize the display size
While most larger pepper displays might be dictated by area and price, be sure to be bold with your displays. Carry all colors four main colors (green, red, yellow, and orange) for the best variety to offer to your customers. Purple bell peppers are also a pretty cool add to your sections when available. Bell peppers are a visual impact commodity and can be a great impulse sale.
Create waterfalls using empty boxes or crates and extend your displays in high-visibility areas and use color breaks to help paint the picture. Large pepper patches can really create awesome-looking displays. Merchandise with other peppers such as chilis and mini sweet peppers to round out the category and build sales. Tie in olive oils, pasta, rice and marinades from grocery and add recipe cards to your displays for customer convenience. Rotate at each pack-out and use your culling best practices to maintain your displays and keep the focus on fresh. Pull and discard any shriveled, pitted or off-quality product. Bell peppers (or dry veg in general) should not be misted.
Grilling greats
Bell peppers are a grilling staple, for sure. Create grilling display areas in your department and tie in other items that are great on the grill. Eggplant, squashes, portabella mushrooms, onions, peaches and pineapple (yes—these are great for grilling!) merchandised all together offer a one-stop-shop for your customer who wants to do some outside cooking. Overwrap a four-count rainbow pack with a green, red, orange, and yellow on a tray and place it by your displays as well. While the summertime entertaining might be coming to an end for many people, grills will be fired up well into October for some.
Another good practice that works in some areas and stores is to put a basket or two over in the meat department to offer up peppers as an added item for your customers' protein of choice!
Slicing and dicing
Slicing and chopping peppers in store and putting them in cut sections is a great way to build sales in the category. Creating mixes for fajitas and omelets, sliced pepper packs for grills and stir-fries and building veggie kabobs are all great ways to use peppers and add sales to the department. Be sure to follow all food safety requirements for sanitation and proper temperature zones for cutting fruits and vegetables, and of course personal safety practices, as well, to prevent injuries.
That wraps up this edition of Retail Detail. I hope you found these tips and pictures useful to help maximize your sales with your bell pepper displays. Time to go paint that picture with one of the brightest and prettiest commodities available in the produce department!
Brian Dey is the senior merchandiser and natural stores coordinator for Ephrata, Pa.-based wholesaler Four Seasons Produce. He's an industry veteran with a serious passion for helping produce teams to achieve great presentation and results in their departments.