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Summertime 2002 is all about 'cool' both in temperature and temperament. Americans, traditionally passionate about outdoor entertaining, are expected to bring the $3 billion patio/barbecue category to new heights.

Expect this summer's holiday celebrations to be heightened on the home front. From Memorial Day to July 4th to Labor Day, Americans will be honoring the American spirit and their own national pride with backyard blowouts and perfect picnics.

So you'd better prepare your inventory, "'cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues."

Setting The Stage

Americans' renewed commitment to family and friends continues to bolster the home-entertaining trends. As this mind-set lingers into the summer months, consumer attention will focus on products such as barbecue grills, accessories, picnic baskets, durable tabletop, and a range of other outdoor living amenities.

When you create your own outdoor lifestyle story, remember outdoor entertaining no longer means hot dogs and paper plates. Sensual, sophisticated atmospheres can be created with ease. Today's outdoor tabletop is both fashionable and functional due to advances in material from polypropylene to acrylics, to enamelware. Designers are fabricating truly impressive, durable dinnerware and accessories suitable for both outdoor and indoor entertaining.

"We carry a range of polycarbonate pitchers and glassware that does well for us," said Tracee Clepper, manager of Carlisle, Penn.-based The Kitchen Shoppe. "They're perfect for patios and poolside."

Helene Schmidt, coowner of Minneapolis, Minn.-based Kitchen Window, agrees, "We don't have any garbage pickup at the lake, so I won't do paper plates anymore. Since these plastic items are really colorful, they are a great substitute and if you damage one, you aren't really upset because they're not very expensive."

The table isn't the only stage you can set. Be sure to complement your decorative offerings with patio lights, candles, garden torches, and barware.

For Fourth of July celebrations, don't forget the starred-and-striped accessories. For example, napkin rings, star-design table weights, or a ceramic salt-and-pepper set can add just the right touch of patriotic spirit. If you haven't carried candles in the past, now is the perfect opportunity. Choose floating stars or red, white, and blue tealights for the holiday. Bug-repellent candles or torches will also make summer entertainment more inspiring.

Large tubs for icing beverages are also great summer items. The styles available today, whether they are in ceramic, galvanized iron, or acrylic, set a range of moods. Individual wine coolers, as well as thermal pitchers and glasses also make outdoor entertaining a cool respite.

Cocktails are integral to summer entertainment, so be sure to widen your barware range to include funky reusable ice cubes, tropical stirrers, straw dispensers, and fun, unbreakable drinkware. Many celebrity chefs are featuring cool summer cocktails on upcoming Food Network specials, motivating your customers to entertain outdoors.

Schmidt said, "Smoothie machines and blenders are great sellers for the summer. All the tools useful in making summer drinks both alcoholic and nonalcoholic do well for us."

To pump up the volume on your summer sales, create an outdoor entertainment setting in your store, including a bar story on a rolling cart. Rolling carts make the transport of ingredients, beverages, or even completed meals both easier for hosts and more sophisticated for guests.

Safety First

Outdoor grilling demands that many safety issues be addressed — from proper clothing to grill equipment features, to proper food handling. Educate your customers about food safety issues, making sure they're aware of the importance of keeping food at proper temperatures and using safe marinating practices. By teaching your customers proper techniques for preparing food outdoors, you will establish yourself as a knowledgeable expert, create loyal customers, and increase sales of key items.

Send press releases stressing the importance of following food safety guidelines to local newspapers. Make yourself available for interviews regarding ways to prevent harmful bacteria from multiplying in food cooked outdoors and causing food-borne illness. Prepare your customers for summertime now by posting materials that promote food safety online, in your store, or in your newsletter.

Begin the story in your store by providing information on how to safely transport meat, poultry, and frozen items. Encourage customers to use coolers with ice or reusable cold-pack bags for perishable foods, if their homes are more than a 30-minute drive away. Include additional information regarding proper storage and defrosting methods.

Serving utensils, tabletop accessories, and cooking thermometers are also hot tickets in the food safety arena. Inform customers not to use the same platter and utensils for raw and cooked meat and poultry. Harmful bacteria in raw meat and poultry and their juices can contaminate safely cooked food. Teach your customers how to properly use food thermometers to ensure the food has reached a safe internal temperature. In addition, inform them that every home chef should be equipped with proper grill attire, including flame-resistant chef apparel and grill sleeves, and mitts made with scorch-resistant fabrics. Incorporate all these products into a safe barbecue display.

Kitchen Window worked hard on its barbecue textile story, stocking both fashionable statements and functional designs. Schmidt said picnic-style patterns are great sellers, along with designs created with safety in mind.

"We carry a line of upscale, heat-resistant potholders, mitts, and aprons, so if you are doing something with the deep-fat turkey fryer or something like that, it provides a bit more protection," she explained. "These are really great items. Between the fun patterns and the safety items, those are two things in the textiles that are really important."

The first thing Clepper does to prepare for the summer season is check out her grilling supply inventory since The Kitchen Shoppe's grilling classes boost sales of grill-related items.

She explained, "I have to have grilling stock and product to back those classes. In conjunction with that, I look at the gourmet food section because our instructor uses a lot of those products as well."

The Kitchen Shoppe also carries several styles of all-purpose aprons. Clepper said she keeps designs simple — mainly solids and stripes.

"We don't carry anything too novelty," she explained. "We make sure to stock oversized aprons for the gentlemen because they do much of the grilling."

Another way to excite customers is to highlight new National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) regulations, which go into effect in April. The regulations require overfill protection devices (OPD) on all 4-lb. through 40-lb. propane cylinders. Since all LP cylinders made to be used with gas grills since September 30, 1998, have OPD valves, this should have little impact on your store inventory. But it's a safety issue you should make known to your customers.

The OPD-equipped valve is easy to identify by its triangle-shaped handwheel and the "OPD" stamp in plain sight. Older valves have five-pronged handwheels.

A great proactive educational program would be to offer customers a discount on new grill units when they bring in old propane units. Be sure your own disposal outlet is established prior to the installation of such a program.

If you're thinking grills aren't a category you can handle, consider that according to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, gas grills have been the fastest-growing category since 1994. Charcoal grills' average retail prices were up eight percent, due in part to the production of better-quality grills. Although sales of electric grills declined in 2001, they are expected to rebound strongly as new technology creates product innovations and demographic shifts present widened market opportunities. Seniors are comfortable with electric outdoor cooking and as more baby boomers move out of their homes into multifamily dwellings, they're creating a new market for electric grills and compact grill units.

In addition, increases in specialty appliances such as water smokers (1%) and turkey fryers (6%) illustrate consumers' willingness to add new grill appliances to their existing equipment.

Hitting The Sauce

A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, N.C., sets its sights on summer by preparing its 28,000-square-foot location for a deluge of barbecue enthusiasts. Grocery Manager Paul Saltzman said his efforts are focused on finding a variety of interesting smoking woods, dry rubs, seasonings, and barbecue sauces and marinades.

"Getting ready for summer is a big deal around here. We do a lot of outdoor cooking and grilling," he said. "North Carolina is known for its different styles of barbecue and we try to feature sauces for all of them. Many of the sauces and rubs that we sell can be used for indoor, as well as outdoor cooking."

Schmidt added, "We do very well with rubs and sauces. Bobby Flay's have been very good. People are really into that and books on marinades and rubs are really good. Our customers really like to make their own. People have some access to really good spices."

The Kitchen Shoppe creates its own private label of rubs and herb blends for grilling. A wide range of barbecue styles and sauces is available, so create a selection of product which provides a regional barbecue story. Doing so will help your customers determine the flavors they enjoy. Don't forget healthy rubs, which are gaining more attention from celebrity chefs, cookbook authors, and consumers.

Saltzman agreed, saying, "Our customers are always looking for new flavors for marinades and sauces. Since people are more health conscious, one of our fastest-growing categories is marinades and sauces for fish and seafood."

Just Rewards

Ice cream is big this year and manufacturers are introducing a wealth of equipment both for creating and serving these frozen treats. Now is the perfect time for merchandising ice cream makers and the funky new accessories recently introduced.

"We sold a lot of ice cream makers at Christmastime. We do really well with ice cream in the summer as well," Schmidt said. "The choice of ice cream makers depends on where they are going to use it, whether it's electric or hand-cranked or a combination. Our customers' childhood memories are creating sales of the hand-cranked old-fashioned ice cream makers."

Ice cream is a year-round business at The Kitchen Shoppe as well. Clepper said ice cream makers are a strong holiday product that they carry throughout the year.

"We like to accessorize with glassware, tulip dishes, and parfaits. Parfait dishes are really hard to find; everyone has different ideas as to what they should look like," she said. "Ice cream scoops are really popular and we also do a few food items, toppers mainly, just enough to create a nice display."

Old-fashioned ice cream bowls will not only tug at your customers' sweet tooths, but will also pull at their nostalgic heart strings. Stylish offerings this year range from '50s soda fountain varieties to 1930s' pressed glass. Pizelle makers and rollers are a great addition to an ice cream display, along with ice cream cone holders and ice cream cookbooks.

Ice shavers and snow cone kits are also great summer items. Create a display that tells customers how they can develop family activities, such as creating ice cream or snow cone parties. More families are cooking together and the hot summer months don't have to be a deterrent to this trend. Instead of heating up the house with a hot oven, families can cool off outdoors with sweet treats they create themselves.

Hit The Road

Don't forget to give your customers plenty of travel accessory options, from picnic baskets to travel knife sets, to coolers. Entertainment accessories should include practical and stylish picnic "baskets" for transporting the perfect picnic on a summer day. Offer products that include more than the usual picnic accessories, such as backpacks with detachable duffels for wine and insulated compartments for food.

Miniature gadgets and sauces are great impulse items during the summer months. Seek items such as miniature salt mills with their own travel bags, so customers can make a statement at their next picnic.

Great picnic items are not only convenient, they also provide safe storage functions as well. Since food should always be kept cold to minimize bacterial growth, summer is a great time to promote travel coolers.

Schmidt promotes more than picnics and coolers for travel. One of her favorite travel items is a nylon travel roll packed with Wüsthoff-Trident knives.

"Their new Traveler case is great. We sell more in the Classics than in the Gourmet stamped line for travel," she explained. "It's really a nice way to have them even if you are flying because they are packed well and safely. I already have my knives packed for our vacation."

Since the Farmers' Almanac 2002 predicts a hotter than normal summer in most parts of the country, we're backing that prediction with a forecast for sizzling summer entertainment sales. So whether your customers plan to pack up their party for the road or invite the town over for a Memorial Day summer finale, be sure you've reviewed your store's inventory. Remember, outdoor entertaining doesn't mean a simple barbecue. It's an elaborate celebration that allows your customers to show their families how important they are. So get ready to demonstrate to your customers how important they are to you.