Marketing Produce

How many ways are there to grocery shop? You can check what you have at home, make a menu, make a list, and then go. You can peruse cookbooks for ideas and see what strikes you when you get there, or you can go in without a list and see what looks good.

You can follow your list to the letter, or you can deviate slightly, depending on the mood. Or you can even make a list with genres "some kind of pasta or rice" and grab what you feel like when you get there.

I'm sure we've all heard some of the general rules about the grocery store and how to be successful -- don't go when you're hungry, make a list and stick to it -- but this can be easier said than done, especially if you didn't have time to make a list, or left the list at home, or if you arrive at the store with kids or family members that didn't help write the list.

Grocery stores can be a good learning experience for kids, and it can be a great way to get them involved in food preparation at an early age. Especially as children grow into adolescents and adults, teaching them to grocery shop and how to build cohesive, balanced meals is important.

But what happens at the cereal aisle when you don't see eye-to-eye, or you're waiting in line staring at the perfectly-eye-level candy bars engaging in the conversation about whether or not candy was on the list. Or, just walking through the aisle to get to the deli case or produce department when the giant cereal/cookie/whatever display distracts you from your original task?

More and more, researchers are recognizing some of the grocery-store tactics used by companies to market their products and wondering if similar techniques can be used to market produce.

Every day, I come across at least one reference (often more like 5 or 10) to the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables and how our actual intake. Are there ways to market produce when you're already in the store? Can you make bananas an impulse buy?

Well, we don't really know, but there are a few good ways to find out! Some techniques that are being used and studied include the use of arrows on the floor to point people in the direction of the produce department. Other tactics (which I see frequently at Publix stores here in Florida) involve placing produce strategically around the store -- such as bananas at the endcaps of the cereal aisle, or onions and peppers at the meat counter with recipe cards for fajitas.

What would help you balance your grocery cart? In El Paso, it certainly wasn't the arrows on the floor -- they actually caused produce sales to fall.

Next week, we'll give you insight into ways companies effectively market to you when you're already at the store.

For more on this topic, look no further.

-- Les, MS RD LD