While Sunflower Farmers Markets — a 34-store natural chain based in Phoenix and Boulder, Colo. — has felt the impact of higher seafood prices this year, its longstanding seafood case merchandising techniques are helping the retailer thrive.
“Keep it very simple — that has always been our philosophy,” says Randy Ong, Sunflower’s director of meat and seafood.
In the stores’ 8-foot, full-service fresh seafood cases, Sunflower displays full rows of around 12 species of fish and shellfish daily. Instead of offering several different types of seafood that shoppers may not be interested in, Sunflower focuses on large quantities of the top-selling species.
“We might not have all of the varieties that you find at a higher-end retailer, but the philosophy is ‘full, fresh and quality,’” says Ong.
The full rows are important, says Ong, because it shows shoppers that the retailer aims to sell the full row.
“Nobody wants to buy the last piece of steak, seafood or other proteins,” says Ong. The full-row, limited-selection merchandising strategy has helped Sunflower compete effectively in the recent years of a challenging U.S. economy. “We compete very well against the stores that have multiple items. They have to raise their retails to account for shrink.”
Instead of raising its retail prices, Sunflower is absorbing losses and negotiating with suppliers to keep costs down. Sunflower’s primary distributors include Pacific Seafood of Portland, Ore., and Seattle Fish Co. of Denver and Seattle Fish Co. of New Mexico.
Another key merchandising tool in its fresh cases is an alternating color scheme. Instead of having white fish like cod next to other white fishes, seafood rows are alternating red and white throughout the case.
“We try to blend the colors: red fillets, then lighter fillets, then darker fillets. You get this beautiful color presentation, rather than a sea of white,” says Ong.
Click here to read the rest of the feature on Sunflower Farmers Markets, which appeared in the September issue of SeaFood Business magazine.
