Food of the World in Delhaize

FFB Belgium soothed shoppers' fears of the ethnic food aisle.

A scary reputation

Ethnic products can still “scare” consumers, who do not know what they are or how to use them, according to consumer research. FFB Belgium was able to use its close relationships with Belgian supermarket Delhaize, and British ethnic food producers selling to Belgium, to launch an innovative in-store promotion to gently persuade consumers to try such products – in the expectation that once tasted, they’d be hooked.

Holding shoppers’ hands

Belgian supermarket Delhaize’s ‘Food of the World’ ethnic food section had had grown dramatically over the past two years to become the leading dry grocery offering in the Belgian market, making it the perfect platform for FFB Belgium to promote the joys of ethnic cuisine. As FFB was working with all of the British manufacturers supplying Delhaize with ethnic food, as well as working with Delhaize on a number of projects, the relationships were in place to enable FFB Belgium to take the lead.

The decision to purchase a Food of the World product is usually made while shopping. FFB Belgium’s promotion took the form of a series of in-store recipe cards in 129 stores in the Food of the World aisle. Each recipe featured a particular product from the Food of the World range together with information about the rest of the range. The promotion served a dual purpose of drawing more shoppers to the Food of the World aisle as well as directly promoting the products in the recipes.

Covering all the angles

Participant suppliers were able to buy the rights to have their products showcased in two recipe cards, and were featured in every card. By creating a coalition of producers and using its relationships with associates across the Delhaize network, FFB was able to ensure the promotion ran smoothly in all 129 stores, employing a team of merchandisers to change the cards on a monthly basis and ensure that the additional point of sales material was properly used.

Phil Lynas, Managing Director at Nando’s, just one of the British producers that took part in the promotion, found it really helped the business. “The FFB Food of the World promotion was a great opportunity to showcase our product range to shoppers where they are most likely to decide to buy it. Even when it wasn’t our month to be featured, the ongoing promotion generated wider interest in the range. We’ve certainly had more interest in this market since the promotion began. Well done FFB!”