Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 7, 1993                   TAG: 9310070051
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VEGETARIANS HAVE THEIR OWN PARTY AT FOOD SHOW

In one area, institutional food buyers and guests queued up to hear spiels, taste-test and order products from about 200 vendors represented at Salem-based food distributor PYA-Monarch's third annual food show.

Peter Jacob, Monarch's vice president of marketing and procurement, said the company expected 700 to 800 of its 1,200 customers to attend the show during its two-day run. It anticipated sales of about $3 million from the show. The company has annual sales of about $60 million.

Monarch is a subsidiary of Consolidated Food Service Cos., a limited partnership of Sara Lee Corp. and the Sandler family of Virginia Beach. Jacob said Monarch has been affiliated with other companies at different times. Its Salem roots date to the 1940s, when it was Frigid Freeze Foods, a meat locker.

The company, which employs about 145 people including 27 in sales, still cuts its own meats. It also carries fresh produce, fresh seafood and 4,000 other food and nonfood items. About 200 to 300 of those items - including jams to go with hot hors d'oeuvres, bagel-based sandwiches for vending machines, 100-percent-fruit juices and a salt-free turkey breast for the health-care industry - are new this year, he said.

Pointing to several clear plastic bags of uniformly sliced, diced and chopped vegetables, Jacob predicted: "This preprocessed produce is where technology is heading, even in retail."

He said Monarch's customers - mainly restaurants, hospitals, school systems and nursing homes - have found it cheaper and more efficient to buy produce ready to serve. He said the company's cases of cleaned and trimmed lettuce, holding 24 heads each, also proved cheaper in the long run, because they yielded little waste and were cheaper to transport than leafier lettuce. Other items gaining in popularity among institutional food customers are seafood and premade doughs.

Jacob said beef's reputed decline in popularity seems to be greater in supermarkets. "When people go to restaurants, they consider beef to be a treat," he said.

A trend Jacob has noticed among vendors is supporting wholesale customers with marketing aimed at end-users. For example, one vendor supplies its institutional customers with special ovens in which to bake its bread dough. Others give customers information or promotional items that can, in turn, be passed on to consumers.

Wednesday, Monarch was doing its own share of passing information to and promoting goodwill among customers. It donated space for Carilion Health System and the Roanoke Area Food Bank to distribute health-care and nutrition information.

It also co-sponsored with the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-Op and Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley - one of PYA/Monarch's biggest customers - Roanoke's first World Vegetarian Day celebration. Monarch customers were invited to attend the party, which was in a small adjacent room.

About 80 people attended the morning presentation by nutritionist/researcher Mark Messina on soy consumption. Later presentations were given by Howard Lyman, founder of the environmental group Beyond Beef, and by hospital dietician and Vegetarian Day coordinator Mary Clifford.

"I'm just overwhelmed by how much everyone enjoyed the program. The nice thing was they wanted to make sure something was going to happen again next year," she said.