I was eating a cool slice of watermelon when Russ T. Blade hopped down from the bookshelf above my desk. “Rusty,” as regular readers know, is the miniature, imaginary produce manager who occasionally appears to talk shop.
Rusty: How's the early May watermelon? Is there a bump in the Brix level yet?
Me: It's, um ... not bad! Looking forward to the upcoming months ahead though. That's when the sweetness peaks. My family devours a whole melon nearly every week.
Rusty: I've got straight loads ordered for the Memorial Day ad. Gonna line the melons up outside my store on the covered sidewalk. When customers arrive, they'll see we're ready for summer.
Me: A great impact item all right. What do you think — should a produce manager gradually add things like melons, corn and stone fruit or plan a big reset to kick things off?
Rusty: There's only one real way I prefer to re-merchandise for summer, and that's the big reset. All at once in one night. I shoot for the mid to latter part of May, depending on product availability, then I make my move.
Me: Same here. I used to get with my store manager for the needed hours for the overnight project. Then, I worked with my senior clerks, showing them my summer changeover merchandising plan. They'd chip in with ideas and adjustments for anything I overlooked, then I'd order everything to arrive in the day or two prior to the reset.
Rusty: It can be a little tricky — winding down sales inventory from apples, citrus and such — to make room for stone fruit and melons. You need to take care not to overorder, which is easy to do. Besides, it takes a little time for customers to adjust and respond with sales.
Me: Early summer merchandising that begins in May makes your job easier going into Memorial Day, don't you think? It's not all that difficult, either. I liked to eat up space reserved for any yet-to-arrive stone fruit varieties by making wider space allocations of apricots and strawberries and grapes — all great color break combinations that makes a real impact and shouts, “Summer's here!”
It's a rad-time of year for added sales. Summertime merchandising includes extra effort on wet-rack displays. Your customers will love the added colors of vegetable varieties and selection for summer salad fixings. (Photo courtesy of Armand Lobato)
Rusty: Don't forget the wet rack and bin displays, too. I set these up with wider shots of leafy greens, colorful spring radishes, carrot varieties and green onions, as well as tables of summer squashes, cukes, peppers, tomatoes. All suggest abundant crisp salads fixings and provide wide splashes of eye-catching colors.
Me: Don't forget fresh corn and all the barbecue items.
Rusty: Corn gets special treatment all right. Nothing shouts summer like an endcap of fresh corn, flanked by bright red potatoes to suggest shish kabobs, potato salads or just wonderful roasted corn, especially when I have the general merchandise manager park a grill near the display.
Me: Corn requires extra care so the display doesn't dry out or get messy. It's best to assign a clerk to refresh it several times each day to keep it fresh. It's a good idea to trim and overwrap up the leftover corn at day's end to keep the shrink low and start fresh with new stock each morning.
Rusty: The emphasis is certainly on constant refreshing with each stocking throughout the day. I have people responsible for receiving and prep, for the wet rack all day, for the dry tables, and especially trained to monitor the high-respiration items such as grapes, berries, strawberries, stone fruit and — gulp — cherries.
Me: Cherries are the jewel of summer produce. They start early along with golden apricots. You need to be careful with the early, pricey fruit but know when to be aggressive once the volume kicks in. Peak-season cherries generate the highest per-square-foot sales of any other fresh produce item. Keep it cold, fresh and rotated.
Rusty: Then there's the front sidewalk displays: the melons and all the summer-related fresh items in bins near the front entrances to the store. Since these are marquee produce items, these need to be merchandised aggressively, rotated, set up fresh every morning and monitored on the hour, especially during busy periods.
Summer melon lineup: Take advantage of outdoor space for bulky melon displays, which are also a great message to customers that your store is in business to sell wonderful, healthy fresh produce. (Photo courtesy of Armand Lobato)
Me: And that busy period starts when?
Rusty: Not long after the overnight produce summer cleaning and reset gets done. From then until late September, it's our season — and you can be sure we're going to make the most of it.
Me: It's showtime, my friend.
Armand Lobato works for the Idaho Potato Commission. His 40 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions.