STORES Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 102)

POSTSCRIPT thelastlaugh Extra Crispy Security KFC president Roger Eaton wasn’t about to play chicken with Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe. Charged with revamping security around the handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices, the brand’s top executive spared no expense. The recipe that became the cornerstone of KFC was placed in a lock box and handcuffed to a security expert. The security official then climbed aboard an armored car that was whisked away with an escort of off-duty police officers. The 68-year old formula for Original Recipe Chicken has been stashed at the company headquarters for decades. For more than 20 years it’s been tucked away in a filing cabinet equipped with two combination locks. The cabinet was inside a vault and behind a multi-locked door. “I don’t want to be the president who loses the recipe,” Eaton says. Only two company executives have access to the secret recipe. KFC uses multiple suppliers to produce and blend the ingredients, but each knows only a portion of the recipe’s ingredients. is expected to reach $77.8 billion in 2008, a 32 percent increase from 2003. Tobacco sales rose 44 percent from 2003 to 2007, and the chocolate market is banking on sweet sales increases in the range of 4 percent annually for each of the next six years. A Job for the Language Police THE UNITED STATES celebrated National Punctuation Day on September 24. That’s the day that teachers and editors endeavor to reinforce that a semicolon is not a surgical procedure and an ellipsis is not something that happens when the moon passes in front of the sun. In the U.K., an organization called the Plain English Campaign has been hard at work. The group took Tesco to task over the wording of the signage used at the supermarket retailer’s express lanes. Signs reading “10 items or less” have been deemed incorrect because less means “not as much,” while fewer means “not as many.” Taking the criticism to heart, Tesco changed the signs, which now read “up to 10 items.” Closer to home, there was a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette calling attention to Wal-Mart’s inconsistency when it comes to the spelling of its own name. A few months back, Walmart changed its logo from WalMart, with a star between the “Wal” and the “Mart,” to Walmart. The logo hasn’t changed on most of the company’s stores; making the switch is going to be costly. But it also hasn’t changed on the company’s press releases, causing confusion among media outlets (including STORES). The company says that Walmart refers only to the stores; the corporation remains Wal-Mart. Got that? Talk About Liking Your Beer Cold REMEMBER how comforting it could be to enjoy an ice cream or fruit-flavored frozen treat? But you’re all grown up now, and those are for kids, right? Not so fast; there’s a new trend in ice pops that has a grown-up spirit. They are called Hopsicles – frozen beer on a stick. It’s a popular item on the menu at Rustico in Alexandria, Va., and other restaurateurs are catching on. It may have something to do with the debut of a cookbook earlier this year called “Pops!” While dedicated to the more traditional varieties of frozen treats, it has a chapter devoted to boozy pops, including the martini, mojito and mai tai. Then again, this could just be an extension of Americans’ normal response to a rough patch. Experts say that, during tough economic times, Americans tend to cling to indulgent pleasures, continuing to buy these items no matter how tight their finances may be. New research from Mintel, a global supplier of consumer and market intelligence, finds the sales of alcohol, chocolate and cigarettes — referred to as “sin stocks” — are strong and steady. The market for at-home alcohol 102 STORES / OCTOBER 2008 WWW.STORES.ORG © The New Yorker Collection 2004 Pat Byrnes from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved http://www.cartoonbank.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - October 2008

STORES Magazine - October 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Force of a Different Collar What Shoppers Think Bagging the Competition 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Favorite 50 Sticky Strategies for Retention Concept2Watch Kiosks Online Business Intelligence RFID NRFtech Wrap-up E-Commerce Credit Warehouse Systems Logistics Selling Tools Supply Chain LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.