Season Market, a 14-chain natural foods market, recently held a merchandising sales contest with Sun Pacific’s Air Chief organic grapes, and the result was far more than it could have imagined for its sales.

Overall, New Season Market stores increased organic grapes sales over 200 percent from the same time period last year, and the winning store led by produce manager Ashley Phieffer increased sales by over 419 percent. Not only did Phieffer and her produce team create a beautiful, eye-catching display, their effort resulted in Air Chief organic grapes sales contributing over 11 percent of their produce sales as a whole during the promotion.

“When the produce managers at New Season Market are given a sales challenge, you can expect to have your sales projections smashed,” said Jeff Fairchild, produce director at New Season Market. “We partnered with Sun Pacific, grower of Air Chief organic grapes, and challenged our stores to ramp up their creativity and merchandising skills with a sales contest.

“By merchandising our organic grapes without a plastic bag or clamshell, we are satisfying our customers’ desire to sample the grapes before purchasing and supporting our core values of doing what’s right for the environment by using less plastic. Equally important, the quality, flavor and crunch of Air Chief organic grapes are unmatched, and our customers love them,” added Fairchild.

“Our organic pack is a 21-pound stem up hand-selected pack,” said Melissa Heinrich, vice president of vineyard category development at Sun Pacific. “All bunches are at least three-quarters of a pound or larger with an emphasis on having a traditional shape composed of wide shoulders and a tapering tail. These hand-selected bunches are packed on a bubble pad, followed by a liner and lastly paper is added to ensure our organic grapes arrive in excellent condition and are display ready.”