Usage Focus Is Key To Increased Consumption

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

Is the future really bright for chili-lime-seasoned baby carrots and similar items? Maybe in a percentage of sales increases, since the base is so small, but count me as skeptical in terms of mainstreaming these types of items. Whatever people say in their survey responses, it is often the case that consumer preferences expressed in survey research are not fulfilled in actual commerce.

Sometimes this is due to wishful thinking – thus gym membership sales may increase after New Year’s resolutions – but that doesn’t translate into much more exercise than last year.  Sometimes it is a desire to impress the interviewer – plenty of people would like to blame their gluttony on someone else – so the reason they are not eating healthy is the fault of manufacturers and retailers who don’t provide chili-lime-seasoned baby carrots.

Even if consumers are honest in their expression and would follow through, the business often cannot accommodate their needs at reasonable prices. Baby carrots have been a boom for the carrot industry, but they are still a small product line. If you get down to the micro level of the small percentage of people who will prefer chili-lime-seasoned baby carrots – and the hundreds of such flavor profiles – it is hard to imagine how manufacturers would produce this assortment and, even more, how retailers would find space for all of these.

This is true everywhere in supermarkets. After all, every other day some retailer announces its intention to “rationalize,” aka “reduce,” its SKU count. This is, however, especially true in refrigerated products and even more true in those products requiring fresh-cut cases with excellent temperature control. It is notable that those companies announcing these types of specialty flavor profiles, often trumpeting trials in press releases, seem very rarely to follow up with announcements of expanding the trials, and one rarely sees them in stores.

The report wisely points out that the definition of a snack has broadened. This is mostly because of processing and packaging innovations. Many food items can now fit in a car’s cup holder and thus become an easy snack. The point here is that producers need to be thinking of executions that are perfect for a usage occasion. A big tub of hummus is designed to take home or use at a party, but those little cup-size servings topped with crackers are great snacks at an airport or to grab to take on a plane. Now since the hummus has to be refrigerated anyway, is there a possibility to market the hummus sans crackers, but with carrot and celery sticks?

Mindfulness about sizes makes sense as well. A big bag of baby carrots is for Mom to dole out as snacks from time to time. Small sealed packets, perhaps with a dip, are great for lunch boxes or to keep in the fridge at work or to grab from a vendor in the airport rushing to catch a flight or at school while in a class. So this research reminds us that snacking and usage occasion are interconnected, and product development has to focus on usage in order to capture the snacking market.

The issue of breakfast is not so much related to snacking as to mindfulness that the way to grow consumption is to change eating habits. In the United Kingdom, a lot more mushrooms and tomatoes are eaten at breakfast than in the US, because a British breakfast is traditionally served with both. If we can persuade foodservice operators to begin integrating produce items into non-traditional day parts – say avocado into omelets and melons into dinner entrees — we will certainly increase consumption, at least of those items.

Now those breakfast items are available all day in some restaurants such as McDonald’s, someone who might have come in for a snack – say just a small cheeseburger between lunch and dinner or after work but before a late dinner – might be open to buying an Egg McMuffin. If we can get either of those items to be sold with a slice of beetroot, then we have boosted consumption a bit.

Obviously, in today’s world, we ought to use what opportunities we have to boost produce consumption. Yet we have doubts that this trend is going to be a net positive for produce. It takes a lot of pieces of lettuce on a snack to replace Mom tossing a salad every night to serve with dinner. And many produce items, especially in the vegetable categories, need to be cooked and are real ingredients.

Along with technology, product and packaging innovation can help. New proprietary varieties with unique flavor profiles can help. Intelligent marketing can help. But the real lesson here is that dining habits are shifting in a way that is not positive for produce consumption, so we need to be hyper-attentive to every possible sale. We are going to need it.