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starts with efficient inventory management in the distribution centers.
“One option for retailers is to consider pack size on slower-selling items to help control shrink,” he says, adding space alloca- tion is also “extremely important.”
GO BIG, USE EVERYTHING
Salvo of Ponderosa Mushrooms cautions retailers to avoid “killing the sale” by marking up prices to compensate for product they might expect to lose. Instead, he suggests adjusting orders regularly by variety in line with sales indicators.
“It’s less about demographics and more about the produce managers and their approach – the pricing, the display, turning product, making sure it’s always vibrant, fresh and attractive,” he says. “In my biased opinion, the bigger the better – big displays sell.”
“From a merchandising standpoint, the best way to get a lift in mushrooms is with secondary displays, moving mushrooms to the front of the store right when you walk in to grab that attention,” says Delaney of To-Jo. “That, we’ve found, is by far the best method.”
And it’s not just displays that are getting larger, but mushroom packs themselves.
“I think you’d be able to add more value- added products, more sliced products and also larger pack sizes,” says Donovan of Phillips Mushrooms. “The staple has been 8-ounce mushrooms, and I seem to be seeing more gravitation to 16-ounce and 24-ounce pack- ages, both whole and sliced — especially sliced.”
He says this change is occurring because consumers increasingly want mushrooms to make up “more of the meal.”
“The brown mushroom category in retail is the one that keeps climbing,” says Donovan. “The white mushroom, of course, is the domi- nant player, and we’re seeing a really consistent growth of the Shiitake mushrooms in retail.”
In Salvo’s opinion, Shiitakes are still one of the most unappreciated mushrooms at retail and have the most potential for growth.
“They’re definitely more and more main- stream, and we see that in our distribution to our foodservice client,” he says of Shiitakes as well as others such as the “fabulous and durable” king oyster.
Also on the topic of reducing shrink, Salvo says a missed opportunity for many retailers is harnessing mushrooms in prepared foods.
“So many stores have in-house deli and
in-house HMR [home meal replacement] cooking stations and facilities where they’re making pizzas in-house, salads, ready-cooked meals to go home with,” he says. “You don’t see many mushrooms in there, and that’s the perfect place to utilize extra mushrooms and also mushrooms that perhaps should be shrunk out of the produce section.”
“This has a double effect – the produce department can sell it to the deli side, which is showcasing mushrooms and showing people how to use them,” adds Salvo.
This is exactly the strategy taken by Stong’s Market of North Vancouver, BC, Canada, whose produce manager Paul Lancastle says “it all goes to good use.”
“We bring in what we know is going to sell. We have really good control of that because we have three orders a week,” he says. “Anything that we have extra such as white or brown mushrooms that lose some of the freshness, we give to the deli for making salads or for hot foods.”
He mentions Stong’s doesn’t do a lot of mushroom cross-merchandising, apart from placing fresh or dried product next to canned soups or the salad section. pb
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