Company Blog

Supermarket Sexy

by Adam Zack — July 13, 2016

Supermarket sexy is about the food, not the garnish.

Food Porn. You see it all over the TV, internet, magazines. Food that looks so unbelievably sexy that you are filled with lust and desire to have it. About half of the photos on my phone are of food. That perfect sandwich I made to show my brother. The Prime steak on the grill tantalizingly licked by flames. Produce wet rack so perfectly merchandised that the colors seem to shout “Farm Fresh!” The charcuterie board with impossibly thin sliced prosciutto and artisan salamis. And so, so many more. But the last thing anyone has ever associated with a grocery store is sexy. And by sexy I don’t mean the boom-chicka-bowm-bowm kind. I mean it in the baby-you-look-so good! way. Food can be like that. Watch an episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on Food Network and you’ll know what I mean.

So the point is, can grocery store food be sexy? Can the monotony of russet potatoes and yellow onions be forgotten by the bright colors of store made fresh fruit salad (and anyone whose fruit salad is cantaloupe, honeydew and green grapes does not count.) Grilled Chicken breasts with thin slices of fresh lemon on them are sexy. Curried chicken salad looks hot. Kale is hot right now in the produce department, but bunches of kale as garnish is definitely not hot. Might as well have Gigi Hadid (famous model who is in People Magazine all the time, or so I’ve heard) cover up in an old burlap bag. Supermarket sexy is about the food, not the garnish. So take a walk through your store. Does the display make your mouth water? Are the salads provocative? Does the stack of Panini sandwiches say “take me now!”? Are people taking photos of your food and posting them on their Yelp reviews and Facebook posts? Oh, they will, as long as you bring sexy back.