Promotions remain popular and plentiful for Texas citrus.
“Both of our grapefruit and oranges are excellent items for cross merchandising because their flavors are so complimentary to both sweet and savory items,” said Paula Fouchek, marketing director for Edinburg Citrus Association, Edinburg, Texas.
Fouchek suggests pairing grapefruit and oranges near salads for dynamic displays.
“It’s adding to the nutritional value of the salad and adds an extra interest,” she said. “Display our grapefruit and oranges near the bagged salads adding other items nearby like sweet onions, various dressings, chopped nuts and croutons.”
Retailers can even suggest adding pre-cooked chicken to the salad to make a meal.
Another idea Fouchek suggests is placing the fruit near other winter fruits to encourage consumers to make a fruit salad.
“Place a light whipped topping by it and various other toppings like nuts or sprinkles. This will increase the rings at the register,” she said in an e-mail.
In-store, education promos
Of course, sampling is also an effective way to drive sales.
Grapefruits, especially, lend themselves well to in-store samplings.
“There are consumers who just don’t know that all grapefruit do not taste the same,” Fouchek said.
“In many cases, sampling, whether it’s a full blown demo featuring a recipe, wedges or sections, helps create new buyers,” she said.
TexaSweet Citrus Marketing, Inc., has several in-store demonstrations planned for this season.
“We will be doing a large in-store retail demo program targeting five markets: Chicago, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Detroit and Portland, Ore.,” executive director Eleisha Ensign said in an e-mail.
The promotion is planned for January and February to hit the peak of the season and help celebrate National Grapefruit Month in February.
The marketing board has created recipe cards, magnetic measurement cards for consumers to place on their refrigerators and signage for the demonstrations.
“We are very excited to spread the love of our sweet grapefruit in these markets,” Ensign said.
A media tour is also planned in three of the targeted markets to help fully engage consumers.
To help encourage retailers to take advantage of all these promotional opportunities, TexaSweet is offering a retailer promotional CD which will provide pre-made graphics, logos, images and recipes, all of which is available from the website, www.texasweet.com.
Another important aspect of this season’s planned promotions is the opportunity for teachers to win a grapefruit juicing party for their students.
“All they need to do is request a DVD that details our grove-to-plate story, have their students complete an activity sheet that we supply and return the sheets to us to enter,” Ensign said in an e-mail.
Ensign said a similar program was successful last year.
“The students loved seeing where the fruit is grown, the process through the packing house, learning about the nutritional benefits and especially tasting our sweet grapefruit,” she said.
Comments (0) Leave a comment