By CYNTHIA VINARSKY

By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- When Leonard Pitts visits a grocery store, he looks past the baked goods, the fruit and the veggies to study the containers they're packed in. In the checkout line, he's checking out the bags.
Pitts, a Canfield resident and retail grocery sales manager for Conley Packaging in Canton, is introducing a new line of grocery bags that he hopes will change the way Mahoning Valley consumers shop.
Launched at Santisi's IGA stores in Austintown, the Lincoln Knolls Plaza in Youngstown and in Girard, the new heavier-gauge plastic bags are designed to be reused up to five times.
If the habit catches on, Pitts said, shoppers will be doing their part to reduce landfill debris, and the Santisi stores will be reducing their bag costs.
It's already working, said Frank Santisi, one of five Santisi family members who own the three-store IGA chain. Customers prefer the larger, stronger bags, he said, and some are bringing them back.
"I had one lady the other day pull out six bags from her purse, all neatly folded," he said. "I don't know how many people will do that, but she certainly understands the principle behind it."
The bags
Marketed as "Bring It Back Bags," the bags are about twice as big as the standard plastic grocery bag and are made of a thicker grade of plastic.
They cost about 3.5 cents apiece, compared with 1.5 cents for the standard plastic bags, but they hold eight to 10 items; the standard bags hold just three or four items.
Pitts has demonstrated that a 100-item grocery order that might fill 20 to 25 standard bags could be packed into six to 10 Bring It Back Bags.
One bag will hold two gallon bottles of windshield washing fluid, he said, or as many as 16 cans of dog food plus a couple of boxes of dog biscuits.
"If the Santisi's [stores] averaged five items per bag and we were able to help them increase that to six items per bag, they'd see a 17 percent savings," he said. "There's a huge savings potential here for the stores."
Inspiration
The idea came out of a brainstorming session after Pitts noticed baggers at a Cleveland-area store lining plastic bags with paper bags before packing them with groceries. With paper bags priced at about 5 cents apiece, he thought, those baggers were unwittingly more than tripling the store's bag costs.
Pitts met with Jack Hampton, owner of IPI Innovative Packaging in North Canton, and the two came up with the Bring It Back Bag concept. Conley is a distributor for IPI.
The larger, stronger bag design is not new -- some discount grocery stores offer similar bags for sale to their customers. Pitts and Hampton thought the reusable concept was unique enough, however, to apply for a trademark on the Bring It Back name. So far, Pitts has placed the bags in five independent grocery stores or store groups in Northeast Ohio, including Santisi's.
Frank Santisi, who manages the Austintown store for the family chain, said the owners decided to phase out their old-style, lightweight plastic bags in favor of the heavier, larger ones as a customer service -- if shoppers reuse them, it will be an added perk.
Santisi's cousins Don, John, Sam and Anthony share ownership in the third-generation family business -- John, Sam and Anthony are brothers.
The toughest part of introducing a new grocery-store product is getting employees to accept it, Hampton said. The Santisis plan sessions to train cashiers and baggers about how best to use the new bags and how to encourage shoppers to reuse them.
Nancy Snead, assistant head cashier and a 15-year veteran of Santisi's IGAs, said she's already sold.
There's nothing worse for a cashier than packing a bag with something breakable, like pasta sauce, and having the bag rip, she said. The heavier plastic will make that less likely.
Selling the concept
Pitts said he's accustomed to skepticism when he introduces the idea of the reusable bags -- his boss at Conley Packaging was doubtful at first.
To counter that, Pitts has a ready list of some other grocery-store changes that seemed ridiculous at first.
For example, he said, people were skeptical about the switch from paper bags to plastic and the additions of dry cleaners, child-care centers, pharmacies and banks in grocery stores.
Bottled water is another example. "Whoever guessed that we'd be putting water in bottles and selling it for more money than pop, milk or beer?" he said.
vinarsky@vindy.com