News Article: R&FF Retailer
SHOP 'n SAVE Social Network Spins Web of Opportunity
by Michael Duff
May 7, 2010
To promote recipe sharing and broader interaction, SHOP 'n SAVE, Mount Pleasant, Pa., has developed a social network under the title Our Kitchen Stories that will help its customers preserve their dining traditions and, in the process, boost mature food segments in the dairy and elsewhere.
More convenience-oriented food categories, including those including frozen and deli items, may enjoy promotion in the social network as it expands support for customers who want to enhance their at-home eating.
Many consumers who are working through the tight economy appreciate the financial and social benefits of cooking at home. SHOP 'n SAVE introduced its social network in April and has been building it from user content, recording recipes participants share with other network members. SHOP 'n SAVE is using its employees, marketing vehicles and in-store signage to encourage customers to connect with each other and, eventually, bring families and cooking traditions together in one online location.
What makes the network unique, said Beth Choike, a spokesperson for the 70-supermarket chain, is that when users create a profile to upload a recipe, they can share memories and pictures they want associated with it. By that means, they showcase traditions that have been passed through generations.
The ourkitchenstories.com network site carries a tag line — Your recipes. Your stories. — and offers tabs that allow consumer to click through and share both kitchen tales and recipes. It also carries a listing of heritage/ethnic events in the Pittsburg vicinity and Stop 'n Save's market area throughout western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and West Virginia.
SHOP 'n SAVE developed its social network idea in the gathering recession as consumers began focusing their leisure time activities on the home.
Only a few weeks old, the Our Kitchen Stories network site is in the early stages of development, with SHOP 'n SAVE employees beginning to participate, stores adding more signage and the company initiating additional network promotion through email blasts and circulars. Over time, SHOP 'n SAVE's circular will become a vehicle to encourage more interaction between customers and the network, printing recipes that are posted online and promoting products associated with them.
http://www.rffretailer.com/Articles/Industry_News/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000819737
