Merchandising Insights
Article By AndNowUKnow
Bland Farms’ Allison Keen Provides Inside Tips For St. Patrick’s Day Marketing
GLENNVILLE, GA – While St. Patrick’s Day is all about embracing your inner Irish spirit, an integral part of that includes the savory food dishes that add some Celtic flair. As buyers fine-tune and merchandise their St. Patty’s Day displays, what better option than a classic produce section staple—onions! I sat down with Bland Farms’ Marketing Coordinator Allison Keen to see what tools they are offering this season to bring a taste of the Emerald Isle to your produce aisles. “Many of the traditional Irish recipes, like Irish Stew and Shepherd’s Pie, include onions,” Allison explained. “We encourage our retailers to focus on promoting sweet onions for these holiday dishes. For retailers that have social media pages, we recommend posting St. Patrick’s Day-inspired recipes to help build excitement for consumers.” To support its buy-side partners this St. Patrick’s Day, Bland will be providing social media posts that will promote its premium sweet onions on the shelf. With so many consumers finding inspiration and new products through their social media feeds, this tool will be ideal for driving foot traffic to your produce aisles as shoppers go in search of the perfect ingredients to create a classic Irish feast. “With so many consumers staying at home, cooking has become a big focus of each day. Onions are often a key ingredient in recipes, and especially in classic St. Patrick’s Day dishes, so we are optimistic that this will have a positive impact on sweet onion sales,” she told me. Additionally, Bland Farms is running a social media-focused promotion of its own that features the beloved holiday as its inspiration. To drive key retail sales, the onion maven is offering consumers themed recipes that use its premium sweet onions as a main ingredient. With all of these delicious recipes to tempt shoppers’ taste buds, they will be clamoring to get Bland’s sweet onions in their baskets.