Just as their nightmares of Dave Nichol are beginning to fade, traditional packaged goods food marketers suddenly find themselves faced with a new personality-based brand rudely shouldering its way onto the supermarket shelf.

This month, Marty Galin and Avrum Rosensweig, hosts of a popular cooking and food lifestyle show on Toronto radio station Talk 640, hope to unveil the first of what they envision will be a broad line of healthy food products under the Marty & Avrum Eat Here! banner.

Galin, a former actor with a gregarious, likable nature and head of long frizzy hair, says the product – fresh-baked kosher pretzels packaged in a freezer bag with salt on the side – is in the final stages of being picked up by a major Ontario grocery chain. Galin says he’s had positive discussions with other interested chains, adding his next product will be a cheesecake and there are others in the works.

For food retailers, the attraction of the Marty & Avrum Eat Here! line is that Galin and Rosensweig intend to use their radio show to promote the brand and steer consumers to the stores carrying it.

In addition to the radio show, the food-loving duo recently agreed to produce a series of one-minute cooking shows on ytv, which they will use to promote kids’ products under the Marty & Avrum Eat Here! label. The pair also wrapped production of a half-hour tv pilot, which they hope to sell to a network and, thus, extend their reach even further.

As well, they plan to leverage their celebrity status on behalf of the retailers that stock their products by making personal store appearances publicized in advance on their shows.

One retail executive (who has asked not to be named until his company completes negotiations to carry the brand) says he sees so much potential in the personality-based label, in part because of its ability to generate store traffic, that he intends to waive the listing fee his chain normally charges to carry a product.