Competing for the food dollar has gotten tougher and tougher over the years for some small retail food sellers as mega-stores have continued to grow in size and number. Businesses in the historic City Market have felt the pinch but new ideas are flowing now that might just stem the tide.
Pete’s Frootique, Dean’s Meats and Lord’s Lobster recently joined ranks to create a campaign called Fresh Trio. It was a pilot project to see if the complimentary businesses, each located just feet from each other in the City Market, could strengthen their bottom line by creating a unified customer loyalty program. Julia Higgins of Wright Agency presented the idea and the group soon launched Fresh Trio, complete with a website, facebook page and youtube channel. “It was a no brainer. It was seemed to be a perfect fit and it’s gone really well,” said Geoff Lander of Pete’s Frootique. “Generally the response has been excellent”.
Customers on the program get a loyalty card that gets stamped each time they make a purchase at one of the stores, with a certain number of purchases resulting in discounts down the road. At this point the group is not sure what aspects of the program will continue but they’d like to continue to push the loyalty card program.
Mr. Lander believes a program like this can have several benefits. “It’s a big boost for the City Market as far as I’m concerned. It’s getting tougher and tougher to compete with Costco and Superstore.” Food shoppers like the convenience of buying most of their foods in one place and some may not realize just how much is available in the City Market. This is an opportunity to band together and diversify their collective offerings, he said. “I couldn’t offer meat and seafood, but this way I can,” he said. The group wants people to realize just how much the City Market businesses can offer both in terms of products and expertise.
Some of that expertise has been put on display in the form of a few videos for Fresh Trio that were uploaded to youtube.com. Blaine Henderson of Dean’s Meats took viewers through a step-by-step process of making chicken Cordon Bleu, a boneless, skinless chicken breast stuffed with ham and swiss cheese and coated in bread crumbs. Mr. Lander is featured in a video that explains how to cut up an ataualfo mango and David Luckett of Lord’s Lobster is featured in a couple of videos explaining how to crack a lobster and how to tell the difference between male and female lobsters. “We’ve got to do whatever we can to promote the market and keep it going,” Mr. Lander said.
All three men behind the project have faced a bit of a learning curve with the prospect of learning about social media and other Internet tools, but they recognize it’s importance, Lander said. “It’s been a huge learning curve,” he said. “I’m like most people of my generation of 45 to 55. My kids are computer nuts. I never spent anytime on facebook before but I’ve started to now. We’ve got to come out of the dark ages,” he said. “It’s opened our eyes. It really has. It’s been a worthwhile project for sure,” he said.
