-By D. Gail Fleenor

Brands that had disappeared from grocery shelves in years past for a variety of reasons are getting a second chance, and some are making the most of it.

There's no set name for this new trend yet, but interest in resurrecting iconic center store brands is growing among grocers, manufacturers, and consumers. On trend, one southeastern grocery chain, Abingdon, Va.-based K-VA-T Food Stores, is grabbing bygone regional brands with both hands, and so are its customers. Manufacturers as well are picking up where their competition left off, with now-defunct brands that customers still crave. Industry experts say this is just the beginning, as grocery brand nostalgia leads to present-day sales.

Reviving regional brands

Steve Smith believes there's a future in the past. The K-VA-T c.e.o. has been adopting orphan brands right and left, starting with ice cream, and then moving on to chips, bread, and now lunchmeat. "This is definitely a trend for us," says Smith. "We understand the relationship that customers have with brands. We've tried to focus on bringing back strong regional brands that were no. 1 or 2 in sales."

K-VA-T is selling the brands exclusively in its 100 Food City and Super Dollar Discount supermarket formats in southeast Kentucky, southwest Virginia, and northeast Tennessee.
"Kay's Ice Cream, based in Knoxville, Tenn., had been sold, and then that company went bankrupt, so the name was out there with a strong following," recalls Smith of his first adoption. K-VA-T, meanwhile, wanted an ice cream that would compete with Breyer's, Mayfield, and Edy's, so it registered the name and consulted with Kay's founder, Jim Alexander.

"We started fairly moderately in 2007 with the old flavors and profile," notes Smith. "Our supplier took the formula and fulfilled our needs."

The line has since expanded from rounds to pints and novelties. "Customers have written us, telling us that Kay's has brought back memories and they are now able to share the ice cream with their kids and grandkids," says Smith. This past summer Kay's All Natural Ice Cream debuted at Food City.

Next on Smith's adoption agenda was Terry's Potato Chips, originally produced in Bristol, Va.
"We introduced the snacks before the 2008 Super Bowl," says Smith, smiling. To bring back the Terry's brand, K-VA-T formed a partnership with Snack Alliance, a snack food manufacturer also based in Bristol. "Snack Alliance didn't have a brand. All their products were private label."

Food City again consulted the brand's previous owner, in this case John Terry, about the spices and production methods used to create the popular salty snacks. Snack Alliance is using the same spice supplier that Terry's used.

Additionally, K-VA-T resurrected retro brand Kern's Bread in May 2008. A Sara Lee factory produces the commercial aisle bread for K-VA-T in Knoxville, Tenn., the town where Kern's first started almost 150 years ago. The line includes white, whole wheat, and other types of breads and buns. The grocer recently introduced a full line of Kern's cakes and doughnuts.

And, in June 2008, the grocer revived Lay's Lunch Meats. "The line has about 40 varieties, including sausage, bacon, wieners, and peggable lunch meats," notes Smith. The Lay family of Knoxville introduced its lunchmeat brand in 1921. Family Brands International, based in Lenoir City, Tenn., is the new manufacturer.

Some items, like salty snacks, can't exactly duplicate the originals. "A customer called and said one of the Terry's snacks was not the same," recounts Smith. "We checked, and the only difference was that now the snack is trans-fat-free, so the texture was different. We adjusted the recipe to improve the texture."

Fresh marketing muscle

Food City is working on bringing back more brands, adds Smith, but it takes time to register the names and develop packaging before becoming a company brand.

"These brands are part of our company," he emphasizes. "They're exclusive to Food City. Sometime, down the road, we might license them to other companies. Kay's Ice Cream, for example, has a long reach."

The grocer puts fresh marketing muscle behind each heritage brand, with coupons and promotional pricing kick-starting each reintroduction. "We have reviewed old ads and searched for likely candidates. These brands give us the opportunity to differentiate our company and give consumers something they like. We plan to continue to invest marketing dollars in the brands to explain what they are and the quality they have, just like CPG companies do."

Bringing back brands can bring benefits, according to Smith, including job creation for towns Food City serves. "Our company saves road miles, which is good for the pocketbook and the environment. We do back-hauling from the plants to our stores through cross-docking. We don't warehouse these items."

K-VA-T is apparently the grocer that has been most active in returning retro brands to its shelves so far. Among the others, Walmart purchased the White Cloud brand from Procter & Gamble in 1999, and began selling diapers and toilet tissue under that name.

Some manufacturers have brought back brands as well. Notable among them is Kellogg, which reintroduced former Sunshine brand Hydrox sandwich crème cookies for the sweet snack's 100th anniversary this year. However, there's no guarantee the cookies will stick around after limited-edition supplies are gone.

Pinnacle Foods, based in Mountain Lakes, N.J., is in the business of keeping iconic brands going, such as Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, Lender's Bagels, and Vlasic Pickles. After acquiring these brands, Pinnacle was itself acquired by the Blackstone Group last year.

Why are consumers intrigued by the re-emergence of what had been extinct brands? The fact that baby boomers enjoy products from their past is only one explanation.

"Consumers are evolving," explains image and brand strategy expert Shelley Forrester, president of The Forrester Network in Weston, Conn. "They are looking for brands that are relevant to them today, that reflect their values."

Leveraging consumer awareness

With the return of iconic brands, store brands no longer need be generic, she suggests, and thus the path may be easier for grocers to take brands shoppers already know and connect with.

However, while heritage brands have the advantage of built-in consumer awareness, it isn't always easy to dust these brands off and put them on the shelf again, notes Forrester.

Grabbing an iconic brand from the past requires plenty of work, including striking just the right balance between old and new. "Consumers today are interested in back stories, the histories of brands," she says. "They also like to look back to times that were  -- there's a level of comfort there."

At the same time, "[t]he brands must be contemporary and fit in with consumers, with what they believe. You have to market these old brands to be successful, change the packaging, bring the brand to the present," she notes. "The product must be at least 75 percent like the original to still be familiar to consumers."

Paul Earle, founder and president of Chicago-based River West Brands, used to be in advertising until he saw an opportunity he couldn't pass up. "It was a pervasive trend," he explains. "Big companies were combining, which led to mass discontinuance or orphaning of otherwise great brands."

His belief that cast-off brands can thrive led to the formation of River West. "We’re in the sleeping-giant business,” notes Earle. "We find lost or forgotten brands."

River West's biggest success story so far is the reintroduction of Eagle Snacks, once owned by Anheuser-Busch. "When AB decided they were a beer company and exited the salty snacks business, they sold plants and equipment to Frito-Lay, and the trademark to Procter & Gamble. P&G never fully implemented Eagle, so we acquired the rights in 2005 and formed a new operating company, Reserve Brands," recalls Earle.

Nostalgia's not enough

The new Eagle snacks rolled out to vending machines in 2006, and are currently in more than 4,000 supermarkets. Unlike most heritage brands, Eagle is offering new products instead of classic honey-roasted peanuts. The new snack lines are Crunchy Poppers! in Habanero, Salt & Vinegar, Sweet Onion, and Honey Barbecue flavors, and Bursts! in White Cheddar Cinnamon Sugar and Dulce De Leche varieties.

River West Brands has also reintroduced Brim Coffee. Earle expects that the coffee will be available in most supermarkets eventually. "The brand still has extraordinary awareness among consumers," he says.

Salon Selectives shampoo, another River West reintro, is currently available at "an assortment of drug stores" and will also be available at Supervalu stores, he says. River West acquired the rights to Nuprin, ibuprofen once marketed by Bristol-Myers, and then struck a deal with CVS drug stores, which carry the product exclusively as the retailer's line of pain products.

Scott Lazar, a former executive with Kellogg and Kraft, runs Chicago-based Reserve Brands. "Adding an established brand like Eagle is like adding steroids to a new product's potential," he notes. "Rather than having to build brand equity and create brand awareness from scratch, we can instead focus on 'reactivating' existing brand awareness."
 
River West's Earle thinks brand reintro is a trend. He stresses that while "nostalgia products may tug at the heartstrings, the brand must be compelling today and for the next 20 years. Novelty or one-time purchases alone are not sustainable." River West is currently working on placing some iconic carbonated beverages and baked goods back on the market, including Almost Home, formerly a Nabisco brand. "These products have strong brand awareness. We just need to find them a new home."


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Tips for resurrecting retro brands

Choose an item that consumers will want to purchase more than once, preferably an item that can become part of a weekly shopping list. Make sure the item you choose has happy memories for shoppers. An item that brings back less-than-pleasant thoughts can leave a bad taste in consumers' mouths. Don't ignore the brand's history. This can be a strong selling point for consumers. Bring the brand back to the future. If it doesn't compare to current brands or is out-of-date, it will remain an orphan in sales. If the iconic brand was originally regional, make plans to introduce customers outside the original region to the brand, which will be new to them. Make sure the amount reasonably expected in sales is less than the amount invested. For example: product packaging, formula or product duplication, and product promotion can all be costly. Complete all due diligence prior to adopting an orphan brand, such as checking out who owns the name, registration, etc. Introduce new generations to the brand through sampling and plenty of marketing. Entice customers to revisit the past with product coupons and promotions. All iconic brands aren't the same. Make sure that the one you choose to resurrect was a strong seller in its previous life.