Local tastes require managers' input on food - discount store sales of food products

Discount Store News, Oct 4, 1993

The merchandise assortment and display of food, candy & snacks at the nation's discounts stores is highly influenced by the individual store manager. Regional tastes also figure strongly.

An individual chain's philosophy on food merchandising clearly shines through the manager's list of top performing brands in this category.

According to the 1993 Top Brands report, store managers said they have more influence in the food, candy & snacks category than any other department in the store. In fact, over a third (35%) of the managers surveyed said they influence merchandising in this department, double the response for the No. 2 category, health & beauty care (17%).

On an individual chain basis, Target managers reported the most influence in this category, 68% of managers claiming to make important decisions, compared to 47% of Wal-Mart managers and just 16% of Kmart managers.

Target managers reported nearly no influence in other categories. Wal-Mart managers showed a strong amount of influence in a variety of merchandise departments, and Kmart managers reported varying degrees of influence depending upon product category.

Local tastes, name brand popularity and varying commitments to the food category by major retailers seem to play a large part in the organization of the food, candy & snacks department and the influence that managers appear to have over the mix in their stores.

Little Debbie, a Collegedale, Tenn.-based snack cake company, received the fifth highest percentage of mentions overall, largely due to its performance at Wal-Mart. Little Debbie first appeared on the Top 10 list a year ago, again, on the strength of Wal-Mart. Despite its rise to fifth place, Little Debbie's status comes from manager responses in the South and North Central states, Wal-Mart strongholds. Little Debbie gets few mentions in the Northeast and West, where Wal-Mart's penetration isn't as great and where other labels, particularly, regionals, have a strong consumer franchise. For Wal-Mart, Little Debbie is the No. 3 best performing brand behind Frito Lay and M&M/Mars.

The lineups at Kmart and Target vary considerably from Wal-Mart and indicate less diverse menus. at Kmart, the Top Brands are M&M/Mars, Hershey, Sathers, Werther's and Brach's, all candy brands. At Target, the brands are M&M/Mars, Frito Lay, Hershey, Shari and Planter's. [TABULAR DATA OMITTED]

Overall, manager report that national brand are on the rise in food, candy & snacks. However, managers report that their list of top performing brands slipped this year to 3.4 brand from 4.1 brands in '92. Even with this small decline, food, candy & snacks has the greatest number of top performers of any category and at 3.4 brands, far exceeding the average per department, 2.5.