PG Web Extra: Dads and Back-to-school Buying

Grocers, take note: When encouraging parents to make back-to-school purchases, don’t forget fathers. According to "Who’s Your Daddy," a comprehensive study from New York-based marketing communication company Y&R, papas are significantly less frugal than mamas, spending more than their female counterparts on back-to-school shopping by an average of nearly $250 in 2014.

With that the case, center store managers could actively court this segment of the population through signage, ads and circular imagery depicting dads and school-age kids on grocery shopping trips, and by creating in-store displays and end caps highlighting the better-for-you versions of fun, kid-friendly fare – jerky and other shelf-stable meat snacks, chips for dipping, pretzels, popcorn and the like – at tasty prices as potential lunchtime or after-school nibbles for fathers' little scholars.

In the Bag

Perfect for cross-merchandising with such center store items as sandwich fixings (breads and condiments) or juice boxes and other shelf-stable beverages, Packit is billed by its Westlake Village, Calif.-based manufacturer, Packit LLC, as "the only lunch bag that can keep healthy food and drinks cool for up to 10 hours." In fact, according to the company, "While other bags require you to waste money on ice packs that stop cooling after only a few hours, PackIt's all-in-one system chills items long enough for kids to actually bring home leftovers at the end of the day."

Packit's best-selling Freezable Lunch Bag now comes in variety of new prints, including Be Mine and Surf Stripe, while a pink Saturday print and a blue Monsters pattern adorn both the Freezable Lunch Bag and Freezable Mini Lunch Bag. Additionally, the Freezable Carryall Lunch Bag, a new shoulder bag aimed at middle and high schoolers, as well as busy moms, "holds wide containers and looks nothing like a conventional lunch bag," the company notes.