Healthy to the core

Seeking to tap into consumers' growing interest in healthier living, a group of enterprising Washington state apple packers has launched a new POS promotion this fall in stores across the country, called "The Amazing Apple." The program was created by Get Fit Foods, an agency backed by the packers, which represent a majority of that state's apple crop. "We're giving consumers deliciously healthy reasons to eat more of the apples they love, through a point-of-sale program that retailers will want to eat up, too," says Blair McHaney, co-owner of Wenatchee, Wash.-based Get Fit Foods, of the initiative.

The promotion, which got under way earlier this month, touts apples as "Mother Nature's Health Insurance." Next a New Year's-timed campaign will promote apples as "Mother Nature's Diet Pill." Then a spring 2006 follow-up campaign, "Mother Nature's Secret Ingredient," will promote apples as a healthy meal or snack ingredient any time of the day.

The New Year's diet campaign will feature a book, The 3-Apple-A-Day Plan: Your Foundation for Permanent Fat Loss by registered dietitian Tammi Flynn, released earlier this year by Broadway Books and now in its second printing.

"This program is perfectly timed, given the growing interest in healthy eating that is being created by publicity of America's growing obesity problem, and the new message from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and MyPyramid to double our fruit and vegetable consumption for better health," notes McHaney.

The campaigns feature a full complement of POS materials, including price cards and posters in both in English and Spanish, as well as display sleeves, poly bags, and tote bags. More than just amazing in name, the new Amazing Apple platform, and each of its trimester retail marketing campaigns, has nutrition science at its core.

In recent years, preliminary research has suggested that apples may provide a "whole body" range of health benefits, from promoting heart, brain, and lung health; to reducing certain types of cancer; to promoting greater weight loss and better memory and learning abilities, when eaten as part of a healthy low-fat diet. For that reason McHaney says the Amazing Apple weight-loss promotion is based on five years of real-world success by Flynn's weight-loss and fitness program, the 3-Apple-A-Day Plan.

Created to help her clients lose weight and get in shape, Flynn's plan was put to the test during a recent national challenge sponsored by Get Fit Foods and Gold's Gym, in which 2,662 consumers lost an average of 20 pounds each, for a total of 51,603 pounds of fat lost, in only 12 weeks.

How did all those people lose so much weight? By eating an apple before every meal, as part of a sensible food and fitness program. In all, they ate 670,000 apples in those 12 weeks. And therein lies the retail marketing opportunity for the Amazing Apple program, says McHaney.

"Apples are the star of a success story that has already gained national attention in magazines, including Newsweek, Fitness, Woman's World, Shape, Family Circle and Muscle & Fitness, and on MSNBC and other national television news programs," notes McHaney. "The more we can get this great story to consumers, the more they will shift their purchases from the $60 billion weight-loss industry into the produce department—where they belong. The Amazing Apple platform is designed to get their attention."

And if you build the displays, the customers will buy more, McHaney contends, adding that apple sales rose as much as 50 percent to 102 percent in stores that displayed the colorful POS materials during previous 3-Apple-A-Day Plan marketing campaigns. McHaney says one large retailer reported that some stores had 100 percent increases in lift and 20 percent increases in apple profits after implementing the 3-Apple-A-Day Plan program, while another national chain merchandiser characterized its 15 percent increase in unit sales and 8 percent increase in sales review during a short crop year "as nothing short of miraculous" at a time when sales were expected to be flat.

Although campaign materials began shipping in September, retailers that haven't already signed up for the program still have time. Contact Get Fit Foods (www.getfitfoods.com), or one of their participating Amazing Apple shipper partners, which include Chelan Fresh Marketing; Columbia Marketing International; Domex Marketing Co.; Evans Fruit Co.; Gold Digger Apples, Inc.; Northern Fruit Co.; Oneonta Trading Corp.; Rainier Fruit Co.; Stemilt Growers, Inc.; and Sage Fruit Co.