The trend of cooking at home more often has maintained its momentum, with consumers still taking to their home kitchens to craft mouthwatering meals and snacking creations. Pine River is harnessing this momentum to spotlight its three innovative styles of Wisconsin Cheese Spread, which present a host of merchandising channels for buyers.
“#Cookathome is a trending hashtag on social media,” Brittany Requejo, Marketing Manager, begins. “Since the pandemic, we’ve seen so many people cooking at home and continuing to do so. We have tear pads on our demo tables that suggest ways to use Pine River Cheese Spread when cooking at home. These can be simple things, like drizzling on your hot dog, adding to scrambled eggs, stuffing mushroom caps, and more. We want to present shoppers with easy ways to use our product that consumers may not have thought of.”
Pine River’s line of Wisconsin Cheese Spreads includes the Cold Pack, Clean Label, and a Shelf-Stable Gourmet Snack Spread. Currently, the products can be found at Smart and Final, Stater Bros. Markets, BJs Wholesale Club, Food Lion, Rosauers, Heinens, Walmart Midwest, and more.
Each of these offerings can be uniquely used to enhance any recipe or snack, creating new cross-merchandising opportunities throughout the specialty cheese and deli departments.
“In our experience, cross-merchandising has been very successful in increasing sales for both our product and the product we’re paired with,” Brittany adds. “When a shopper tries a sample featuring our cheese spread with a specific cracker, they want that combination, so they will buy both products. We always have success promoting our cheese spreads with a featured cracker, pretzel, or bread. It’s an obvious pairing and when featured together in a deli display, both sell very well.”
To tap into this merchandising gold mine, all retailers have to do is showcase the in-demand products alongside key charcuterie items or provide recipe inspiration to inspire other cross-merchandising pairings.
With great-tasting cheese spreads like these, the opportunities are endless.
Follow along with the specialty cheese sector and more with updates from Deli Market News.
