Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Furshet supermarket won the fruit&vegetable display contest held in Ukraine for the first time
Early August 2005 the unique for Ukraine contest was held in Cherkasy. For the first time the supermarkets competed as to the best display of the fresh produce sector, which is a visit card of any supermarket.
All the specialists of the retail trade know that the produce sector of the supermarket is usually located the first in the store. In the majority of the world countries with the developed retail trade the special attention is paid to the decoration of this sector. In fact, the fresh produce sector forms the mood of the store clients, and influences their purchase activeness in the other sectors of the supermarket.
In Ukraine the image of the produce sectors in supermarkets, as well as the assortment and the quality of the supplied produce leave much to be desired. That is why during one of the marketing seminars the specialists of the Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP) and its clients decided to conduct a contest on the best produce display. Cherkasy AMP office initiated this activity, so Cherkasy was defines as a venue of such contest, the first of the kind in Ukraine. The maximum quantity of the supermarkets works in Cherkasy comparing to the other cities with the same population.
The terms of contest organization and conduction were developed by Dr. Timothy Woods, the Professor of Kentucky University; Cherkasy AMP office coordinated the order and dates of the contest with the supermarket managers. In a month before the contest the training for the produce managers was held. Besides, AMP consulted the managers on the modern vegetable, fruit and berry merchandizing when necessary.
The contest on the best produce display supposed the daily maintaining of the displays during a week, and also tracking of the sales of fresh fruit and vegetable commodities. The main attention was paid to fruits and vegetables produced by the local farmers. The produce should be fresh, possess clear signings, and contain the fullest information about its origin. The following factors were also assessed - the politeness and efficiency of the personnel, creativity of the display decoration, etc.
During four days the displays were overviewed and assessed by the Commission consisting of the specialists of the central and regional offices of the Agricultural Marketing Project, the representatives of the customers' side and farmers. After the thorough analysis the commission decided to add more prizes to the originally planned three awards, as all the participants treated the contest very seriously and demonstrated the desire to improve the produce sector image in their stores.
As a result, Furshet supermarket (Ruslan Romanyuk, the manager) won the first prize, Spar supermarket (Rostislav Tkachenko) and Absolut supermarket (Yevgeniy Dzyuba) were awarded two second prizes, and Grand market supermarket (Alexander Oleksenko) occupied the third place. Besides, the Commission decided to award Silpo supermarket (Vitaliy Makhinya) by the special encouragement prize. To the opinion of AMP marketing specialists, the contest will help to increase the produce displays' appeal, so that the additional value will be created in fruit and vegetable trade. Beautiful displays will attract attention of the buyers and support the turnover increase.
The managers of the supermarkets say that during the preparation to the contest they got many interesting information regarding the color break use, vertical placement of the produce, its calibrating, the information about the commodity and other peculiarities of the merchandizing in the produce sectors of the supermarkets. The purchasers were also satisfied and reacted correspondently, as the volumes of the fresh produce sales increased during the contest.
Cherkasy AMP office is summarizing all the suggestions provided during the contest and is composing the recommendations on the improvement of the produce sectors work, so that the gained experience could be transferred to the other regions too. The specifics of the produce retail trade will be in focus during the second international conference "Fruits and Vegetables of Ukraine 2005".