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Ubiquity's efforts to enliven both companies are already reaching store shelves. This spring, Jays rolled out its first entirely new product in years: Sweet Baby Jays sweet-potato chips. It also introduced new flavors, like Garden Herb Ranch, to its line of ridged chips. Packaging graphics were revamped, enhancing the logo and strengthening line continuity.

Lincoln Snacks also has rolled out a new product: Poppycock Peanut Butter & Chocolate, co-branded with Hershey Foods. Lincoln has redone its graphics as well, and recently introduced a single-serve version of Poppycock.

Ubiquity's improvements start behind the factory walls. It has installed about $6 million worth of improvements at Lincoln, including new lines for processing and single-serve packaging. More than $17 million more will go for improvements to the Jays facility on Chicago's South Side.

Of that, about $13 million will go into the existing plant. Planned improvements include a robotic palletizer, a new line for Jays Krunchers! kettle-cooked chips, better computer hardware, and general upgrades to layout, parking lots, lighting and other basics. Another $5 million or so will go into acquiring, gutting and refurbishing a warehouse across the street.

Distribution upgrade

The warehouse acquisition is the key part of a drive to improve Jays' distribution. Under the current make-to-order system, most product goes from the plant on Jays trucks to a dozen distribution centers in the upper Midwest. Once the new warehouse connected to the plant is up and running by January of 2006, most of the plant's production will be held there. Eight of the current 12 distribution centers will be converted to five cross-docking locations, and all route truck orders for these locations will be picked at the plant itself.

The new distribution system will accomplish three objectives, says Al Eisley, Ubiquity's senior vice president for operations. It will improve inventory control, heighten productivity and reduce ongoing transportation costs.

"We'll be able to reduce the number of over-the-road trucks that we send out of our production facility on a daily basis by 50%," Eisley says, "by eliminating most of the remote warehouse stock replenishment we are doing today."

Distribution is one of the most important bases for synergy between Jays and Lincoln.

"The synergies between the two companies are totally distribution-related," Healy says. "It's not a Jays and Lincoln issue. It's a Ubiquity strategy."

The biggest reason for the disparities in distribution is the difference in shelf life. Jays' flagship fried chips have a shelf life of about eight weeks; Lincoln's popcorn-based sweets can stay on store shelves up to a year.

As a result, Poppycock and other Lincoln products have long been sold nationally, while Jays is pretty much confined to an eight-state area centered on Illinois. But now that they're sister companies, they can benefit from each other's distribution systems. Ubiquity plans to include Lincoln products on the Jays direct-store-delivery runs. Conversely, Jays is working with some of the major retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Walgreen's and club stores, who currently handle Lincoln products.

The Krunchers! crunch

Key to this effort will be the marketing of Krunchers!, Jays' line of kettle-cooked chips, as a national brand. Jays has already succeeded in putting Krunchers! on the national stage through Panera Bread Co., which uses the chips as a side for the sandwiches it sells in its 740-plus quick-service restaurants nationwide.

"Krunchers! is developing into a recognized brand name," Eisley says. "You have to have one of those if you have national aspirations."

Jays plans to expand retail distribution of Krunchers! westward to Denver--the first significant retail presence for a Jays product outside the upper Midwest.

Jays has had a long, proud history in the Chicago area, but it's had its troubles, too, going into bankruptcy in March of last year. Investment bankers Willis Stein and Partners promptly bought Jays and formed Ubiquity to manage it.

Jays' Chicago heritage is one of the company's biggest marketing assets, says Toro Reynolds, Ubiquity's executive vice president for innovation.

Reynolds says, "It actually amazed me how much our consumers own Jays. They'll tell you, 'This is my hometown brand. I feel like since it's made close by, it's fresher tasting, and I love it.'"

The recent graphics revamp for Jays products takes that heritage into account in subtle ways. On the back of the new bags is a prewar picture of a Jays truck being loaded, over a brief company history. The front has a logo redesigned to incorporate Jays' long-standing slogan: "Can't Stop Eating 'Em." "The second thing consumers told us is, Jays and 'Can't Stop Eating 'Em' are synonymous," Reynolds says.

Line consolidation

Ubiquity has made more basic graphics changes. They have unified the look of Jays flat chips, with vibrant colors, easy-to-read flavor names with supporting art, and a shiny, metallized appearance. For the graphics redesign, Ubiquity hired Haugaard Creative Group.

Another graphic change has to do with nutritional information. Jays has long touted on its labeling its use of com oil, but focus groups made it clear that the average consumer didn't realize the implications. To spell it out, Jays chips now sport a "0g Trans Fat" label.

Consumer input helped with the labeling of Lincoln products, too. As part of a general graphics modernization, Lincoln quizzed people about its longstanding motto, "It's the Nuts." What they found is that consumers responded more to the candy glaze on Lincoln's popcorn-based products than to the nuts, prompting a switch to, "It's the Amazing Glaze."

Packaging improvements have gone beyond graphics. As befits a budding national brand, Krunchers! is now being packaged in high-barrier metallized polyester from Master Packaging.

Other packaging material enhancements are being studied. For instance, popcorn, marketed under Jays' Oke-Doke label, is an important product line. The company claims to have a 40% market share for ready-to-eat popcorn in its distribution area. Current flexible packaging features a window that allows consumers to see the popcorn, which is enticing but compromises the film's moisture and oxygen barrier. Reynolds is working on a redesign with metallized film.

"When you add that metallized barrier, you lose that window and that visual appeal," Reynolds says. "So you have to make that up with graphics changes."

To help with packaging decisions, Jays is conducting a series of 16-week shelf-life tests with the help of the University of Nebraska. These tests evaluate not only materials, but the efficacy of modified atmosphere packaging. Jays put nitrogen-flushing equipment on two of the plant's 29 vertical form-fill-seal baggers as an experiment.

Packaging and product innovation is going to be one of Ubiquity's mainstays, Healy says: "I think that product innovation, form and flavors are really the difference in this industry. I really don't believe as we sit here today that there's been a great deal of innovation [in snack foods] on a national basis."

Ubiquity has systematized the product-development process, giving consumers a strong voice along the way. The process starts with four two-hour brainstorming sessions, which, Reynolds estimates, generate a total of more than 300 ideas. About 25 of these become prototypes for consumer testing--which can yield some surprising insights.

For instance, a new flavor was called "Margarita." Consumers liked it, but some parents indicated nervousness about feeding their children a snack named for an alcoholic beverage. The flavor was renamed "Caribbean" and will be rolled out soon.

Ubiquity is putting both brainpower and steel behind its two iconic snack divisions.

Says Eisley, "We're sending a message that we're going to be in this game for a long time to come."

For more information

Haugaard Creative Group 312-661-0666; .com

Master Packaging 813-837-1575; .com