Marketing season will be energetic for CMI, retailers
Marketing season will be energetic for CMI, retailers
Columbia Marketing International encourages retailers to prepare for a high-energy marketing window this cherry season.
“Like the entire Northwest, we’re quite early, from 10 days to two weeks depending on the specific location,” said Steve Lutz, vice president of marketing. “In addition, it looks like the season — from the earlier districts to the later districts — will be more compressed. So this suggests that in addition to an early start we will have a more tightly compacted season. Retailers need to plan for a very strong June as well as the best July 4 promotion opportunities in years.”
Even though volume for 2015 will be down when compared to 2014, Lutz isn’t discouraged. “We think it’s shaping up for a banner year,” he told The Produce News. The harvest was expected to begin over Memorial Day weekend, peaking around July 1 and wrapping up by Aug. 1.
With improvements that have been made by CMI owners McDougall & Sons and Columbia Fruit Packers, Lutz said, “The vast majority of CMI cherries are being packed in facilities and on equipment that is less than three years old.”
CMI markets both conventional and organic cherries to its global customers. “We also are continuing to expand our line of cherries under the No. 1 U.S. apple brand, Daisy Girl Organics,” Lutz said. “We first introduced the Daisy Girl pouch bag for dark cherries last year. We’re adding a pouch bag for Daisy Girl Organics in Rainier cherries this year.”
CMI is focused on driving performance with its key customers. “We’ve spent this spring analyzing scan data and working with those customers to build cherry sales plans to maximize performance given the early crop timing,” Lutz explained. “In looking at performance for all retailers across the U.S., we see that top cherry retailers, in terms of contribution percentage to total produce, generate 38 percent of their season totals in the first five weeks of the Washington season. Low performing retailers only generate 29 percent. So there is very strong evidence showing that a key to maximizing cherry sales is for retailers to get their cherry displays and promo programs in place so they can aggressively start the main season in early June and not let up through mid-July.”
