In the good old days of National Frozen Food Month, our planning at Lender’s Bagels began the week after we returned from the Frozen Food Convention. Murray Lender’s charging orders were: “Get involved!”
He expected planning meetings to be held in each market with our broker, the key customers as well as all other brokers and direct selling teams. He made himself available to as many meetings as possible and often found himself in at least three different markets a week starting in November.

“It’s never too early to get the plan into motion,” would be Murray’s opening comment. I often attended those meetings with Murray and sometimes got the opportunity to wear Murray’s favorite Pete the Penguin suit. These meetings were used to get people excited and assign the sales teams to work closely with the customers to ensure that shoppers knew March was National Frozen Food Month.

While in the market we would always have an appointment with the key customer or two to challenge them to be the best. Murray would first ask the head buyers to be the leaders in their markets, but it never stopped there. He also called on the transportation team for each account, asking them to support the event by putting penguins on the sides of their frozen food trucks, helping promote National Frozen Food Month. By the time we’d visited with everyone Murray wanted to see, a single call might take three hours.

Murray also expected these same players to have monthly follow-up meetings to ensure full support. If there wasn’t a local association before Murray came to town, there would be by the end of March. Local associations were the key to the early success of the event. In a number of markets, the major newspapers played an active role. The Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Dispatch were two of the most cooperative in the area that I managed. Both produced special sections for our events and often gave us special pricing. Starting with the first National Frozen Food Month Kick-Off event in Washington, D.C., other local associations vied to host the meeting in early March each year. Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Orlando, Cleveland, Seattle, Dallas, Indianapolis, Portland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco — among others — all hosted great events in the early days.

Now there are fewer local associations and the enthusiasm for Frozen Food Month varies by market. Yet there are still retailers big and small that keep the event top of mind with their customers.

If it weren’t for Murray, Bob Rich, Jr, Rose Totino, Gene Pfeister and a few other Frozen Food Entrepreneurs working hand to hand with Nevin Montgomery and Skip Shaw, who knows if this event would have ever seen 25 years of continued growth and excitement. As one who took a back seat and rode along on their success I am delighted for all they did in laying the groundwork to make our annual event what it is today.