Seal pelts on your shopping list? Colemans flyer features unusual item
It's something you might not expect to find at your local grocery store, but retailer Colemans says selling seal pelts is good business.
The grocery chain has been selling pelts since last year, but a recent flyer ad featuring Newfoundland seal pelts for $129 and up sparked interest on Twitter.
Judy Bennett, spokesperson for Colemans, told CBC News the items have been selling well in stores.
"We like doing things that sometimes surprise customers and this was unique, to sell seal pelts," she told CBC's The Broadcast.
"Once we did list them with our stores I know there were a few raised eyebrows, even from our management team once [buyer] Matthew Coleman suggested. 'let's sell seal pelts,' but they just took off with such approval from the customers."
'Something unique'
Bennett said the arrangement was worked out through the buyer and Carino CEO Dion Dakins.
Colemans has been selling seal meat for years, but Bennett said when the company learned there were pelts available the opportunity couldn't be passed up.
"We've been around since 1934, we've always supported local industry so selling seal meat was not anything new for Colemans, but with our partnership with Dion we learned that there was quite a few number of beautiful seal pelts at the plant in Dildo," said Bennett.
"It was kind of a natural progression to move toward something unique and kind of out of the box."
According to Bennett, Colemans hasn't received any negative feedback since this week's flyer went out.
"Everybody's been so supportive of the industry and we have not had any negative impact," she said.
"Now I'm sure you're going to get one or two that come in who are uninformed and know very little about the seal industry, and these are the ones that would give you the negativity because they're uninformed."
