What's 40,013 pounds and colored orange, yellow and green in Metairie, La.?
The Guinness World Record-breaking Sunkist citrus display is the shining answer to that question at the Metairie store location of Rouses Markets based in Thibodaux, La.
“With the craziness we've gone through with COVID and the supply chain, we wanted to do something fun with merchandising and give something for our team to be proud of,” said James Breuhl, vice president of fresh at Rouses.
After a team of 20 people worked for two days, the display was complete Feb. 26. Staff unloaded and placed more than 100,000 pieces of mostly Sunkist citrus, including navels, oranges, limes, lemons, cara cara, blood oranges and grapefruit — “literally everything citrus we could procure,” Breuhl said.
Photos: Courtesy Rouses Markets
Learn more: Citrus 101
Meeting the stringent Guinness World Record requirements took diligence and extra attention to detail.
Rouses had to hire a photographer to follow the citrus truck, which had to be sealed, and then he had to go to a highway weighing station. After that, Rouses team members had to document the seals being broken on the truck once it reached the store. Through a video call, a Guinness representative virtually vouched for the final result to grant the honor.
“It was a very in-depth process,” Breuhl said. Stabilizing such a massive supply of fruit took a lot of maneuvering and strategy. Breuhl estimated the final display was about 80 feet wide and at least 10 feet tall.
Besides winter being a big time for citrus, Rouses had its own reasons too for picking this fruit category as the star of this effort.
“Citrus is really big for us down here in the South. We include it in our crawfish boils, and crawfish are in season now,” he said. Sunkist was a major sponsor.
This is the third time Rouses Markets has earned a Guinness World Record with a merchandising display.
Several years ago, Rouses created a record-breaking artichoke display, and in December 2019, it was roughly 112,000 avocados that set the world record.
While these visually jaw-dropping displays are impressive achievements with accolades galore increase in-store customer purchases, there's obviously a lot left over. But no worries about the excess being wasted.
“We've dispersed it among 60 stores to sell,” Breuhl said. “A good bit was left at the store because customers were seeing it, getting excited and buying it. You couldn't walk in here and not be wowed.”
Learn more: Winter Produce Artist Award Series
Produce merchandisers and managers nationwide are encouraged to email to [email protected] six to 10 photos of their best wow-worthy displays for our Winter Produce Artist Award Series.
Produce categories include citrus, winter greens, Chilean produce, mushrooms, potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli.
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