At any of the 79 P & C, Quality and BiLo retail food markets in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire, shoppers don't have to find the bakery department. Instead, the bakery department finds them the minute they step into the store.

According to Roy Osborne, senior category manager for Syracuse, N.Y.-based Penn Traffic Co. that owns and operates markets under the P & C, Quality and BiLo banners, the bakery department “owns” an average of 1,300 sq. ft. in each of the 30,000 to 40,000-sq.-ft. stores. But when it comes to marketing and merchandising, bakery has no boundaries.

“We're always looking to expand our product presence and availability into spaces we don't own from walk-in to checkout,” he explains.

As a result, shoppers will find tables full of still-warm Italian loaves, colorful cupcakes, cookies and other treats at the front entrance. From there, can't-miss displays of breads, cakes and other products in virtually every department and by the cash registers not only encourage impulse sales, but continually emphasize the presence of a working bakery in the stores.

According to Pat Myers, bakery merchandiser, no department is off-limits to the bakery. Tables filled with sweets are positioned near the dairy section. Rolls, two-pack big cookies and pie and cake slices are displayed in the deli. And on SuperBowl Sunday and Valentine's Day, the biggest days of the year when men shop by themselves, special game-time or gift-oriented product displays were set up in the beer aisle, Myers adds. Osborne would even like to merchandise the department's sugar-free sweets in the stores' pharmacies.

“We've learned through independent customer surveys that we're considered a destination bakery, despite the fact that we're surrounded by other major supermarkets and specialty bakery product chains,” he notes. “That's exactly what we want because we want to be known as the ‘around the corner bakery’ in our communities.”

Roy Osborne, bakery category manager; Amy Lacastro, bakery department manager and Pat Myers, bakery merchandiser, in front of the decoratored cakes freezer.

Penn Traffic has its roots in the early 1940s, before the introduction of self-service supermarkets, when a group of producers formed a cooperative called P & C Markets to emphasize the producer/consumer connection. In 1942, the cooperative opened its first two-story, 24,000-sq.-ft. store in Batavia, N.Y.

Over the next six decades, the company expanded to a total of 300 units through the opening of its own new corporate stores and the acquisition of four other chains. To service the bakery departments in all of these stores, the company opened its own frozen dough production plant.

Within the last five years, Penn Traffic closed a large number of underperforming stores to consolidate its operations and increase profitability. As a result, the demand for dough declined dramatically, making it more financially expedient to shut down the central production facility. Two years ago, the company closed the plant and outsourced its frozen dough products.

Healthy sales hike

Bakery sales climbed from 3 percent of total store sales four years ago to 3.9 percent earlier this year, then to 4.25 percent by the end of October. Aside from supplying its own stores, Penn Traffic also provides the same programs, frozen and mix products and technical support to more than 120 units representing other chains and independent markets that sell the bakery items under their own labels. This outside wholesale segment represents about 40 percent of the company's total bakery sales.

Each of Penn Traffic's in-store bakeries is staffed by a seven- or eight-person team and is equipped with a 40-qt. to 80-qt. mixer and rack ovens; most have fryers and glazing tables and some have sheeters. All of the baking and decorating is done in an open format in front of the customers.