Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/769179
Greg O'Neill, Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread & Wine, Chicago, IL Working through slow moving or soon-to-be obsolete perishable merchandise can be difficult when you are a small retailer who doesn't play the discount game except in extreme situations. Obviously we try to buy smart, but inevitably we will be leftover with a significant amount of something. This past post-holiday we were stuck with an unusually large stock of panettone, as our shipment from Italy got delivered very late and our window to sell before the holiday was small. Since we have had similar situations before, we found ways to employ the product in our restaurant dishes, cheese pairings, and online features in order to get it out the door. Our secondary display changed focus from holiday to cold weather ("Makes the best french toast ever!") A previous year when we were left with a large number of jars of French penja pepper jam confit, we decided to make a special retail store sandwich for it, which kept us whole without having to discount. The sandwich was so popular that we were able to move through it quicker than planned without having to do much more. Also don't forget that Valentine's Day is a great opportunity to get additional mileage out of excess perishable inventory. We try to use products in multiple gift collections, catering trays, prepared foods, etc., so that we have hedge strategies if the product doesn't move off the shelf. One can also change placement on the shelf to a more prime eye level and it changes velocity quickly. Sometimes though, we make a bad bet on a product that isn't cutting it and we just discount down to get it on out. Patrick Crowl, Woodstock Farmers Market, Woodstock, VT We try to purchase a majority of holiday items that are not so holiday-ish. We feel there are tons of great specialty food products that make great gifts and they don't have to have "Santas" or snow or candy canes on them. We also keep the ordering tight on the "Santas." Just sell out early is our mantra. Go directly to Yard Sale. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. We have our Yard Sale Area, near our checkout stands, which houses items that we feel are just not going to make it through the winter. These might be holiday items, but more likely some items where the price point or the packaging just did not jazz our guests. In the early spring we have a modest section of the store where we also employ the Yard Sale theme—often in April—where we purge the entire store and put things on sale that we won't be carrying anymore; basically a clearance sale. We'll also re-focus some things for Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend. This weekend has become bigger and bigger over the years so there are some items we can re-purpose or re-energize in different merchandising displays that often incorporate special pricing. The important thing is to make magic after the holidays and boost sales by making it exciting after the traditional holiday sea- son. Our staff usually loves the change, and after a long season our guests welcome the focus on other food celebrations. Richard Tarlov, Canyon Market, San Francisco, CA First, the goal is to buy in such a way that there is not a lot of inven- tory left. One way we do that is using a continuous improvement approach where we refer to detailed holiday recap reports that we assemble for each and every holiday and big event in our city. We distribute recap forms to all the buyers and supervisors and prompt them to fill in details. So for instance, instead of saying "chocolate panettone flew out of here!" we ask them to fill in how many we ordered, how many sold, how many were left over. Then, to ensure that these are referred to ahead of the holiday, we have someone lay those past forms out on the conference table prior to buyer meet- ings. The forms also capture info on staffing, shortages, customer requests, and operational glitches. However, there always will be some product left unsold. Speaking generally of the grocery departments, we put things on sale. We do this with big signage on the display, with the discount taken automatically at the register, or in some cases we put things in our close-out bin, a small rolling cart with signage explaining reasons for stuff being in there. In this case, a green price label is put on the product and the bar code is crossed out, signifying to the cashiers that this is a "miscellaneous" sale, since items with that UPC may still be in inventory scanning at their usual retail price. (Since we are so meticulous about inventory, this green-sticker method is not used a lot—there are 20 to 50 items in it at a time.) The other incentive that is built in to all of this is the annual end-of-year inventory. The buyers are motivated to sell through inventory so that they have less to count in early January. But they are careful not to under-order because they tend to be very focused on their comparative sales. For the cheese, charcuterie, beer, wine, kitchen, etc., these issues are not nearly as big. But for the meat department we never hesitate to go long on turkeys. Since we have a kitchen and expert butchers, we do a lot with the protein that's left over. For instance, we smoke turkey parts, roast the breasts for sandwiches, make lots of stock for soup, and freeze the birds to pull as needed. Sara Kay is content and education associate at the Specialty Food Association. "Go directly to Yard Sale. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. We have our Yard Sale Area, near our checkout stands, which houses items that we feel just are not going to make it through the winter." WINTER 2017 109