Sunbury, Pennsylvania-based Weis Markets has placed an order with Verus International Inc. for its Major League Baseball-branded candy products from its Big League Foods (BLF) subsidiary.
Weis operates 198 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia and Virginia. In addition to being the first supermarket customer, Weis also is the first to utilize BLF’s new display shipper, which includes the full line of baseball-themed gummies and sour gummies, baseball gumballs and baseball foiled chocolates and caramels.
Verus has received approval from MLB to offer its product line to official club retail and stadium stores. Seattle, with 24 team stores, was the first to express interest in offering the products, followed by Houston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Toronto, Minnesota and Philadelphia. Verus expects to receive interest from additional teams in coming weeks as it works its way through all 30 MLB team offices.
“When we invested in the molds for these new shapes and upgraded the packaging, we knew that buyers would like the changes,” said Verus CEO Anshu Bhatnagar. “But the universally positive reaction has been even better than expected, increasing our confidence that we will sign new customers at a faster rate than first anticipated. We expect to maintain very strong new order growth as store buyers receive additional samples of our new products.”
The BLF division has now begun to offer display options to retailers to ensure better placement of its branded packaged goods. The company believes that this effort, along with a full complement of products covering all 30 MLB teams, will help attract larger regional and national chains that prefer free-standing and counter-top displays. In future product cycles, Verus will begin offering player shaped gummies to complement the new baseball, bat, glove, and hat shapes, giving the line a fresh look during the course of the season.
