Different retail chains have different philosophies; some have clean-floor policies, while others are more than happy to use colorful and educational point-of-sale material from suppliers and associations.
The panel of experts at PMG’s Produce Artist Award Series Winter 2021 Results Webinar said the key to making the most of those resources is to do so tastefully.
Curious who the big winners were for our winter season? Read about the top entries here.
“It’s a support mechanism, something to help call attention,” said Armand Lobato, an industry veteran who’s held positions ranging from produce manager to supervisor to buyer and who’s now on the foodservice side of the business. “I don’t like blocking the department either … because you do have other things to sell within the store and the department, but to me it’s an enhancement. It should absolutely be used in a tasteful kind of way. You don’t want to hang everything possible up because then it detracts from the display.”
His message to produce managers over the years was to get it out of the backroom and get it on the floor – and then, just as importantly, to take it down once its messaging was no longer relevant.
“The one thing that I always would caution our team was, if you’re doing a contest, if you’re doing a seasonal-type display, it needs to complement the entire department,” said Joe Watson, former director of produce for Rouses Markets and now vice president of membership and engagement for PMA. “It doesn’t need to overtake (things or it can end up) affecting your traffic flow and hurting maybe displays around it. So it needs to be tasteful, it needs to be strategic, and it needs to complement.”
Watch the full recording of the winter wrap-up webinar here.
Mike O’Brien, former vice president of produce for Schnuck Markets and now president of O’Brien Innovations, expressed a similar sentiment.
“The product has to be the star,” O’Brien said. “You don’t want visual clutter in your department. The product has to be the star, but enhancing and helping sales, certainly it is important.”