Make the Most of the Dairy Aisle

Convenience stores and drugstores are well-positioned to capitalize on milk sales. White milk has always been a critical item on fill-in trips — those where 10 items or less are purchased — and today, fewer consumers have time to make a stock-up trip, opting instead for a shorter c-store or drug store run.

Our new 2008 Campaign For Healthy Weight promotions directly target women and mothers because of their pivotal roles in managing household milk consumption and influencing healthy habits. We pair up with Curves® in a March retail promotion and then salute “Mom as Chief Health Officer,” with an exciting retail sweepstakes in May. Both of these promotions are designed to help retailers sell more milk. To find out more about our 2008 promotions, check out our promotions page.

Additionally, due to their single-serve, grab-and-go nature, c-stores and drug stores can capitalize on the fact that a wide variety of new milk flavors makes it a more appealing beverage for kids, teens and adults, and resealable, single-serve, plastic containers make it easier to choose milk. And, featuring milk allows convenience stores and drug stores to benefit from milk's "health halo," as consumers associate these channels with making a healthful choice.

We have two new 2008 promotions designed to sell flavored milk. Our Refuel With Chocolate Milk promotion is directly targeted toward athletes and is designed to help retailers sell more single-serve milk. And, our Chocolate Milk: The Official Drink of Halloween is back for 2008! To find out more about these promotions check out our promotions page.

Milk Delivers for C-Stores and Drug Stores Shoppers will visit a drug store or c-store specifically to buy milk and then purchase additional items, for a higher total ring; 96% of milk purchased at c-stores is part of a fill-in shopping trip in which 10 items or less are purchased. A MilkPEP study showed that increasing the frequency and basket size of fill-in shopping trips can increase sales by over $1,000 per customer per year. Milk is the fastest-turning category in c-stores. Fluid milk has a 30.6 annual inventory turn rate, which is 237% higher than the average turn rate. Milk delivers shoppers. 48% of all milk purchases in c-stores are made by women. They are incremental customers representing additional visits and sales. Fill-in items are purchased on 48% of c-store visits; consumers already think of c-stores as a good place to buy milk. In a MilkPEP survey, milk was the third most frequent reason given for shopping at the c-store; it also ranked third on impulse visit purchases. When a leading Midwestern c-store chain built its fill-in business around milk, the result was an annual per customer sales increase of $1,272. Sales at drug stores were up 9.6% in 2002 from 2001 to $147.4 billion. Milk's potential in drug stores is largely untapped; only 4.5% of shoppers make the trip to the drug store primarily to buy milk, and milk represents just 4.9% of total impulse purchases. The average drug store shopper — a female ages 21-64 — shops that channel more than once a week and buys fill-in items on about 73% of visits. In one test, a drug store chain that put extra effort into getting milk into fill-in baskets saw an annual sales increase of $2,268 per customer.