Meal solutions dominate FMI show

Discount Store News, May 19, 1997 by Laura Liebeck

CHICAGO -- The age-old question of what's for dinner has taken on a new meaning in recent years as the needs of time-pressed consumers has brought about previously unforeseen changes in today's food retailers.

Fresh, shelf-stable and frozen foods as ingredients have given way to ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat and ready-to-cook meal options with consumers requiring that the food be of restaurant quality and priced at a value.

At the recently ended Food Marketing Institute annual convention, held here May 4 to 7, the key issues were meal solutions and health and food safety concerns both during formal educational sessions and by many of the 1,300 exhibitors occupying the 1.3 million sq. ft. of space at McCormick Place. Other important issues getting lots of attention were category management, ECR (Efficient Consumer Response), new and effective store design, virtual retailing, shelf tag accuracy and new product introductions. Fringe issues included organic foods, new juice blends, vegetarian dishes and Ostrich meat.

Technology was often referred to as a key ingredient to the success of food-related trends. Numerous suppliers offered programs to aid category management techniques, shelf management and assorted security issues. For example, Sensormatic is now offering a portable camera surveillance system for retailers and a software program that will allow a retailer to view four stores at once from a single computer screen; Intactix now offers InterCept, a scorecard program for space and category managers; A.C. Nielsen has expanded the size of its household buying survey to get more specific and in-depth data; and Strategic Systems has extensive training software for all levels of employees. Even Tropicana has a category management software program for its retailers.

But it was meal solutions and the attendant health and safety issues that dominated conversations on food and the new product introductions.

"Meal solutions is everywhere throughout the show. It marks a major trend for the industry [changing food retailers] from purveyors of ingredients to that of full meals, which means more safety issues," said Mike Wright, president of SuperValu and this year's FMI chairman. FMI, he added, is joining with assorted consumer and public watchdog groups on these issues. Two of these issues identified during the show were shopping cart safety, now a joint project with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, SafeStrap Inc. and Johnson and Johnson. Also, FMI is partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to develop a national program to help children.

Approximately 36,000 people attended FMI this year. The show, redesigned for better access to exhibits, featured a one-level exhibit floor across the North (for technology exhibitors) and South halls (mostly for food vendors) of McCormick, making access much easier than ever before. Also, a tram circled the show floor aiding weary visitors.

Food retailing is a $425.7 billion industry in transition mostly because of busy, duel-income families that require a different approach to solving dinner dilemmas.

Among the educational sessions held during the convention, the following trends emerged:

* More micromarketing in food preparation and menu selection to meet the needs of a retailer's diverse population;

* A greater emphasis on health and safety issues for both store employees handling the food as well as to shoppers who buy the products;

* Greater experimentation and testing of self checkout, electronic shelf tags;

* Store design is moving into an entirely new realm with retailers taking a closer look at how they merchandise their stores and how customers shop moving away from concentrating on averages. Among the ideas that emerged from the Store Design of the Future program, was a store organized around the meals of the day or departments organized so that customers can buy all of the ingredients they need at one time and in one place without having to scout the store for the necessary items.

New product introductions abounded at the show, recovering ground lost last year when new product introductions fell by 23% from 1995 levels, according to Lynn Dornblaser, publisher of New Products News.

Carol Elitov, executive vp, general manager of IRI's New Product Solution Center, identified the top 10 new food products in the last year as: Baked Lays, DiGiorno Pizza, Oscar Mayer Free, Five Brothers, Hershey's Sweet Escapes and Barrilla sauces and pastas. She predicted that in the coming years new food products will be created specifically for older consumers, and there will be a greater move toward low-fat but high-quality items.

Among the new entries at the show:

* Bragels by Sara Lee--filled bagels n five varieties;

* V8 Plus, carrot-based juices;

* Hillshire Farms' savory sausages;

* Minute Maid Soft Frozen Lemonade;

* Pillsbury's Just Add Milk muffins

* Old El Paso's Tortilla Stuffers, sauces ready for the wraps;

* Frito Lay's Wow line of no-fat salty snacks made with Olestra, a laboratory substitute for fat created and patented by Procter & Gamble. Product won't be available, except in test markets, until 1998 when P&G's Olestra plant comes on line.