Half of its customers are women who are buying milk for their families. When the company analyzed loyalty card data, it found that the top three SKUs were milk, milk and milk. Women were buying Skim D’Lite for their families, chocolate milk as a treat and buttermilk for cooking and baking. Milk sales are boosted by a loyalty card promotion offering a free gallon after 16 purchases.
Dairy has a healthy image, and the stores play off of that. A door cling promotes a pint of skim milk as a “natural energy drink” with 8 grams of protein and 12 grams of carbohydrates. The company joined MilkPEP, the Milk Processor Education Program, to take advantage of the program’s chocolate milk promotions.
In the community
Weigel has been active in a number of professional groups, including the Tennessee Dairy Products Association, the Tennessee Business Roundtable, NACS (the association of convenience stores, where he served on the board of directors) and past president of the Tennessee Retail Grocers Association. What really makes his eyes light up is when he talks about his involvement with the Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts and the Milk Fund. The Weigel’s Family Christmas program with the Salvation Army gives over two hundred children cash to buy clothing and presents. It’s an all day shopping spree the second Saturday before Christmas with lunch provided. “We have over two hundred volunteers serve as chaperones for each child as they move around their shopping day” says Weigel.
Weigel achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and calls that perhaps his proudest achievement. Besides skills he learned through scouting, he learned perseverance and preparation. A job seeker with “Eagle Scout” on his resume gets a second look. The Boy Scout motto “Be prepared” is a lesson he applies every day. His dad instilled it in him since he was born to prepare for the next “Great Depression.”
The Milk Fund, funded by store proceeds from coffee, egg nog and cappuccino sales and in-store collections, provides underprivileged families with vouchers to buy milk, orange juice, cottage cheese and dietary supplements.
80 years of dairy and retail
Weigel’s used a very 21st century tool – social media – to celebrate the company’s 80th anniversary in 2011. Weigel notes that in the 80 years, each generation has started a business. His grandfather started a vegetable farm, his father and uncle Lynn B. Weigel founded a dairy, and Bill Weigel developed a C-store chain.
The celebratory “80 days of Wow” campaign on Facebook offered big-ticket prizes, including flat-screen televisions, campers and snowmobiles. Each of the 80 winners competed in a reverse raffle for the grand prize, a Toyota Prius. The promotion was so successful that the company ran a second 80-day campaign. Through the social media site Foursquare, customers who earned “mayor” status at Weigel’s stores could win a limousine ride to the airport.
Weigel maintains links to the past. He opens up a well-worn ledger book to show a visitor sales numbers which have been entered by hand. Though he could read the numbers on a computer spreadsheet, Weigel is used to looking at hand-written data. The numbers show that dairy volume has doubled in nine years and has increased every year for 20 years. Further, the average store is growing sales 10% annually. The stores have 2½ doors of Weigel’s milk but he’d like that to be three. Weigel is considering adding an ice cream processing line to the dairy, but that would mean an investment in freezer trucks. Distribution issues would need to be worked out.
Whether or not the company makes its own ice cream, the future looks promising. NACS says an average convenience store selling fuel has about 1,100 customers per day, or more than 400,000 per year. If Weigel’s sales numbers continue their increase, the stores are certain to thrive, as will the dairy.
