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Joint Industry Warehouse-Delivered Snack Committee Showing Great Results
by Tommy R. Thomas, The H.T. Hackney Company
Chairman, AWMA Warehouse-Delivered Snack Committee
Almost three years ago, the idea of promoting warehouse-delivered snacks was a concept that came out of C/SCAPE data. The data, which reinforced the high margins of ware-house-delivered snacks, convinced both manufacturers and wholesalers. Three years later, with the support of wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers, the success stories are just beginning.
The Joint Industry Warehouse-Delivered Snack Committee, an AWMA initiative, has completed a lot of work in the last year and a half. Comprised of wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers, the committee has come together to form what has been a very exciting venture. Wholesalers and manufacturers that compete in many aspects of their businesses come together as a team to promote the value of ware-house-delivered snacks.
Warehouse-delivered snacks are made up of salty and savory snacks, candy and mints, beef jerky, and sweet snacks to name a few. During the last 18 months, racks were developed to display these products in the retail environment. The developed rack is called a multi-vendor endcap, or MVE. Although this is not the only way to promote warehouse-delivered snacks, the MVE has be-come an important vehicle to get the products to retail. To date, 10,000 of these MVEs have been placed in convenience stores with plans to have 14,000 placed by the end of 2004.
The MVE is placed on an endcap and combines the best sell-ing snack products from a variety of manufacturers on one rack. One of the important things to note is that when these MVEs are placed at retail, the same products stay inline at the store. The result is that retailers found the MVE did not cannibalize what was already on the shelves.
The key for wholesalers to develop their own program is to work with a rack manufacturer and then work with their suppliers to decide what products would be best for their MVE. Placement at retail—and keeping the MVE planogram—is the key to the success of the program. AWMA and the Committee is working on a program to help smaller wholesalers develop their own programs. More information will be available soon.
There currently are many distributors with MVEs, including The H.T. Hackney Company, Core-Mark International, Eby-Brown Company, GSC Enterprises, Richmond-Master Distributors, Farner Bocken Company, Dot Foods, JT Davenport & Sons, Inc., S. Abraham & Sons and McLane Company, Inc., to name a few. We have several manufacturers on the committee, including Hershey Foods Corporation, Masterfoods USA, Nestle USA, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Snack Foods, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, Kellogg’s Food Away From Home and Mrs. Freshley Snack Foods. The Committee is continually encouraging more distributors, manufacturers and retailers to join the bandwagon and sign up for the committee, as well as promote the value of warehouse-delivered snacks.
The Committee released some important data earlier this year from a c-store chain with 186 stores. The proof of the potential for this pro-gram was clear, with snack sales in-creasing 114 percent for a three-month period, while overall warehouse-snack items grew 63 percent. The Committee is getting ready to release some new results from two other c-store chains in the next month. So far, the results are promising and the Committee is looking for-ward to promoting these latest results. The Committee is dedicated to continuing to promote the value of warehouse-delivered snacks.
For more information, call AWMA at (800) 482-2962, or log on to the AWMA web site at http://www. awmanet.org/snacks/snacks.html. Tommy Thomas is director of sales for The H.T. Hackney Company, Knoxville, TN, and chairman of the AWMA Warehouse-Delivered Snack Committee.
Reprinted from Distribution Channels. © 2004 by the American Wholesale Marketers Association.
For more information on warehouse delivered snacks and the Joint Industry Warehouse-Delivered Snack Committee, contact Bob Pignato at 800-482-2962, ext. 642 or robertp@awmanet.org.
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