1. Don’t have a “ghost town” Twitter account. The biggest mistake that many brands make is to start up a Twitter campaign and then drop it.  @Entenmanns, @NECCO_wafers, and @SwansonChicken are all guilty of this.  A social media campaign requires patience and time to develop relationships and engagement.  If you do decide to discontinue a campaign, remove it from the Twitter site instead of leaving an inactive account visible.
2. Do tweet for your audience.  Make it relevant and personalized to your consumer’s interests.  Inexplicably, @MrsButterworths tweets about football trivia – a definite disconnect. A common mistake: @HormelFoods  mistook their Twitter account for a corporate PR tool. Anyone looking for business information about Hormel can find it on the company’s website.  On the other hand, @EndustFree does a great job of finding creative ways to engage its consumer.  Who would have thought that dusting could be so interesting?
3. Don’t put too much focus on your brand/products.  Tweets from @RealDuncanHines are all inwardly focused on the brand itself.  It’s all about them.  Remember, effective tweets need to be about engaging WITH your consumer not chattering AT them. Twitter is a place to have a two-way conversation.
4. Do be human and use a real “voice.”  Brands that have a human voice create better engagement.  For example, @butterball’s tweets are personable and engaging.  You could actually imagine meeting this person.  Butterball also uses @replies effectively (a way of dialoging directly with someone but at the same time sharing it with all your followers).  Snack cake purveyor @LittleDebbie is another example of a grocery brand using a real human voice to engage with its followers. Reading the tweets, you really feel as if you are having a personal dialogue with someone who cares at this company.
5. Don’t re-tweet compliments about your brand, as @Healthy_Choice does. This is awkward and very self-serving.   Overuse of the exclamation point gets rather annoying – don’t do it.
6. Do vary your content and make it interesting.  Both @Pepsi and @CocaCola do a great job of this.  They are very focused on their audience and are clearly holding their attention. Of course, they also have large marketing budgets to support what is without a doubt a major focus at these huge beverage brands.
7. Don’t spam Twitter accounts that don’t know you.  Recently, @RaguSauce did this with a series of tweets about how Dads are clueless when it comes to preparing dinner. Ragu found Twitter handles (user names) with “Dad” in them and then tweeted at them with a link to a Ragu video.  This backfired on the company when one particularly vocal Dad blogger, who received one of these tweets, blogged about how “Ragu hates Dads.”  Ouch!  Be very careful about tweeting at audiences who are not engaged with your brand.

For more information on this topic…

• Check out Chris Brogan’s blog post “Help! My groceries are tweeting and they’re terrible!”
• Joel Comm’s book, Twitter Power – How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time, is a great resource.  While this book is primarily geared toward business-to-business marketers, CPG marketers can learn much from it.
• HubSpot regularly publishes eBooks on various social media topics.  Here is a link to “Using Twitter for Business”

It’s an exciting time for the industry.  According to the Organic Trade Association the organic industry grew nearly 8% in 2010 at a time when “flat is new growth” is the current trend for many other segments of the economy.   Given the state of the economy this is particularly notable.   It is clear that ever more consumers are choosing to buy organic and natural products, and retailers are beefing up their product selections to meet the demand.  

Where will the industry go from here?  Based on current trends the future looks bright.   However I recently read a less optimistic report about comments made by the chairman of Nestle, the world’s largest food company.   Peter Brabeck-Letmathe says “you have to be rational…there’s no way you can support life on earth if you go straight from farm to table.”  So in other words we rely heavily on industrialized food production to fill supermarket shelves and our own pantries.

Nestle has recently acquired several premium brands that organic food lovers people enjoy, like Skinny Cow ice cream, San Pellegrino water, and PowerBar energy bars.  The Nestle chairman agrees that organic products (known as “bio” products in Europe) are “good” and that Nestle should help the farmers who make those products.   But essentially Brabeck-Letmathe sees organics as a “privilege,”  a “romantic” notion that is not scalable enough to provide for the world’s food supply. 

Brabeck-Letmathe stated that “from a nutritional point of view, studies show no nutritional difference from bio to other foods, but it’s more dangerous.”  He went on to cite a statistic about the 30-40 deaths a year caused by organic foods fertilized with livestock manure. 

Many would dispute these claims,  and consider such comments to be viewpoints that the largest food corporations promote because organics runs counter to their business model and profit base.  There are certainly large growing companies that do have a strong commitment to organics and wellness, like Amy’s Kitchen and Eden Foods,  but the question is whether such firms would ever achieve the scale necessary to feed the planet. 

This is a key issue that will be debated, and to some extent worked out in the marketplace,  in the years to come.

I will be searching for what’s new and exciting at the Natural Products Expo and connecting with industry colleagues there.  

  Please contact me at npeterson@emergingbrandsmarketing.com if you would like to set up a meeting at the show.

Show Entrance

The show was packed on the two days that I attended and most companies I spoke to reported having quality visitors in their booths.   I observed some common trends and innovative new products which I will describe in more detail here.  Click here for the Summer Fancy Food Show Photo Gallery.

Restaurant to Retail

I attended a workshop on the topic “Restaurant to Retail Product Trends” (click here to view the Restaurant to Retail Presentation) given by Kara Nielsen, “Trendologist” at the Center for Culinary Development and David Sprinkle with Packaged Facts.  One interesting point was that restaurant trends no longer start just from fine dining, but from a broader, more “populous” landscape, including street food, bar snacks, campus foodservice, and beer gardens.  They described some international products that are of interest for the U.S. market, including a number of Japanese products derived from miso. In fact, I saw many companies at the show exhibiting Japanese cuisine-inspired products.  

Japanese Cuisine

I read recently that when a disaster happens in a particular region, often there is a subsequent spike of interest in foods from the affected area.  The truth of that was certainly proved at the Fancy Food show.  I observed numerous booths selling Japanese-style products, including Tonton, which was showing a line of sauces made with authentic ingredients from Japan.  This business was started by Yoshi Shioda, whose Restaurant Tokyo (opened in Charlotte, N.C. in 1984), offered authentic Japanese cuisine at a time when sushi was still an exotic and unknown dish for most Americans.   Delice Global was showing Taiyaki, a Japanese fish-shaped cake.  ICrest was showing a line of Yatta (which means “I did it” in Japanese) brand products such as Panko crumbs, Maifun Rice Sticks, Sushi Nori, etc

Translating Asian Concepts to American Palettes

I observed many companies offering what I would call “Asian-ness translated” type products.  One such purveyor is SnapDragon Pan-Asian Cuisine, whose tag line is “journey to the culinary capitals of Asia where every stop brings a new taste discovery.”  Their products include Vietnamese Pho, Rice Noodle Soup Bowls, and Wasabi Cashew Crunchies. 

Appetizer Adventures

Appetizer Adventures, touting “Bold New Tastes to Explore,” has a line of “taste of” products, including “A Taste of Beijing” as well as more European concepts like “A Taste of Tuscany.”  Modern Day Masala, “where American life meets Indian cuisine,” takes the labor and guesswork out of Indian spice preparation.   Many companies offer sushi kits – I was especially intrigued by Japan Gold’s Sushi Kits marketed as “Sushi for Dummies,” as well as Miso to Go and other products designed to help people with Japanese cuisine.   Finally, there was Kaurina’s, offering Indian ice cream “dessert bars.” 

Chef-Inspired Products

This concept is hot these days, as evidenced by the popularity of TV shows featuring chefs and the growth of restaurant-branded retail products.  Chefs have a lot of credibility that can spill over to their branded products.   At the Fancy Food show, I saw many chefs working the booths, including very well-known folks

Cat Cora Sofi Awards Speaker

like Cat Cora, who has a line of Cat Cora Kitchen products made by the Gaea company (and was the featured speaker at the show’s awards ceremony).  Colavita, which had a major presence at the show, is a brand that takes the culinary arts and the development of chefs very seriously, providing the financial support for the Colavita Center for Italian Food and Wine at the Culinary Institute of America in New York.  Colavita has aligned with Master Chef Ken Arnone.  There were many restaurants (small and large) dipping their toes into retail waters, ranging from a well-known restauranteur such as Davio’s to a small Thai restaurant,  Thai Feast.

Gluten-Free

There were gluten-free products everywhere.  In fact, it now seems that gluten-free is a benefit that most companies will try to offer, whenever possible.  It was interesting to see even Cabot Cheese advertising their products as “naturally gluten-free.” 

Ancient Grains

There was plenty of quinoa at the show.  You can tell it’s become mainstream when it’s offered under the Near East label.  I asked around about what was the next up-and-coming ancient grain and heard about “teff,” which is an ancient North African cereal grass.  I found it on Bob’s Red Mill website.

Other Cool Innovations

 Elizabeth Jean’s Homemade Pie Kit, an assembly kit for making fresh apple pie, even includes a pop-up timer.

BLK – literally, bottled water that’s black.  It’s a naturally black Canadian spring water that offers natural minerals and nutrients derived from fulvic acid.  Could this be the next “hot” (or should it be “cool”) water product? They certainly have their work cut out for them convincing consumers to buy what to most will appear to have come from a less than pure source.

Dean Jacob’s is offering a line of Advanced Spray Technology oil spray, made without propellants, additives or preservatives.  A key benefit is that it is not flammable.

Todd’s Dirt Seasonings -  a very creative name for a line of seasonings in a competitive category.

Buddy’s Fruits - a line of blended fruit in pouches that offers a snacking alternative to whole fruit

Yanni Grilling Cheese, from Karoun Dairies, is a Mediterranean cheese made specifically for grilling.

Osem Whole Wheat Pearl CousCous is a new and healthy side-dish offering.

Cal Hancock Accepting Sofi Gold Award

I have to also mention that Hancock Gourmet Lobster and Cal Hancock, whom I got to know when managing Gorton’s mail order business, won 3 more Sofi gold awards, including the very prestigious “Best Product Line” award which is the equivalent in the foodie world of winning the Oscar Best Picture award.  Hancock Gourmet is a perennial Sofi awards nominee and has won many awards at previous shows.

Top 4 Takeaways

Here are my top four takeaways from this summer’s Fancy Food show:

1. Look for more growth in Asian-inspired products, particularly Japanese products.
2. If you can claim your products are gluten-free, or can reformulate them to be so, you should consider promoting this popular benefit.
3. Restaurant-branded and chef-inspired products are experiencing high growth, presenting potential opportunity for food marketers.
4. Look to the street, such as Street Food Trucks and to popular venues like Beer Gardens for up-and-coming food trends.

As always, if you’d like to discuss how these trends might apply to your product or business, contact me here.

Natural Products Expo East, Baltimore Convention Center, Sept. 20-22

-  Government efforts to fight obesity

              – New dietary guidelines from the USDA encourage healthier eating, and particularly eating more seafood.

              - The  Food Pyramid makeover “My Plate,” presents a visual reminder of how to make more healthy choices for meals.

- Consumers eat more meals at home and continue to cut back on eating out (FMI, 2011).  Yet many consumers are unsure about how to prepare their own meals. This suggests a market opportunity for those offering simplified, back-to-basics how-to’s. For example, The Boston Globe recently featured an interview with chef/entrepreneur Jasper White, whose newest cookbook touts simple preparation of top-notch ingredients. White’s cookbook emphasizes buying the best produce or seafood available locally, and then offers simple recipes. Food marketers can take advantage of this trend by offering simple recipes and meal suggestions along with their own products, or introduce new products that tap into the desire for easily prepared yet healthy home-cooked fare.

                – There is growth in takeout meals and restaurant-branded products (IFT, 2011).

- More “real” food.  The growth in organic and natural food products continues along with interest in farmer’s markets.  Consumers are looking for more “local” and sustainable food choices (FMI, 2011).

- The ranks of “foodies” are growing, as evidenced by the growth in specialty foods and television cooking shows.

- Gluten-free products have become more mainstream. Witness the surge in sales at supermarkets and mass merchandisers, as opposed to at the specialty food stores where gluten-free products were more often found just a year ago. There is some question whether this is a trend that’s here to stay or just a passing fad.  Packaged Facts predicts that the market will double to $6 billion by 2015.

- Consumers are shifting from traditional fortified foods to natural sources of nutrients.  Protein and whole grain are “superstar” nutrients.

I will report back on what I observe at the show and welcome any input from my subscribers as well. 

If you’d like to arrange a meeting at the show, call me at 978-468-6123 or email npeterson@emergingbrandsmarketing.com as soon as possible.

The companies represented on the panel were Stonewall Kitchen (Natalie and Jonathan King), Stonyfield Farm Café (Mac McCabe), Winterport Winery (Joan and Mike Anderson), Grindstone Neck of Maine (Carl and Mason Johnson), and  Raye’s Mustard  (Karen Raye).   These are all well-established businesses, involved in a variety of food products and run for the most part by the people who built these businesses from scratch.  The points the panelists made really resonated with me, both in view of my own professional experience and because I have heard these same issues  and concerns raised many times over by clients and industry contacts.

Here are the key lessons these food industry veterans shared about distribution, finances, marketing, and people:

Distribution, Pricing, Costs

• Have a clear distribution strategy.  Network with your peers and do your own research on all distribution channels –  retail supermarkets, specialty food stores, warehouse clubs, military commissaries,  foodservice,  etc.
• Understand the pricing and margin structure for each channel – they are all different.  For instance, a supermarket retailer’s margin will be in the range of 30-40%, while a specialty food store’s will be about 60% (including distributor margins). 
• Understand your true costs.  Put the tracking in place that will help you to accurately determine every aspect of your costs.  Make sure you factor in yields for both raw ingredients and finished product.  
• Price consistently – be very careful about discounting.  Stonewall Kitchen, for instance, has never discounted their prices.

Finances

• Plan for capital investment.   New food producers often underestimate their capital needs.
• Control your growth.  Develop a relationship with the oldest bank in the area and then deal with the youngest bank manager there who will spend time with you and fight for what you need.

Marketing/Sales

• Know your market.  You need to know everything about the market you are in and be passionate about what you do.
• Sampling is the key to growing a food business.   You can gather critical feedback and create buzz about your product.
• Always be creative, innovative.  Maintain your enthusiasm and the positive driving force of your business.

People 

• Surround yourself with the best people you can afford and be sure to take care of yourself.  This latter point is very important and often overlooked.
• Figure out what you are good at and what you are not good at.  Hire good people to do the latter. 
• Know when to hire staff in order to grow.  In fact, having the right people is critically important for start-ups. Hire good people who are passionate about what you do.   
• Promote from within, but remember that sometimes you also need to hire outside.

3 Key Takeaways

1. Hiring decisions (and timing) are critically important to a successful business.

2. Know your business, inside and out, particularly your financials, pricing, costs, and capital needs.

3. Be passionate about what you do.

If you’d like to discuss how these lessons apply to your brand or business, contact me at npeterson@emergingbrandsmarketing.com.

Not so long ago, before the web played such a big role and the explosion of food-related cable TV shows on media outlets like the Food Network, the genesis of trends was fairly straightforward. There were authorities like Gourmet magazine and Martha Stewart, and serious chefs like Paul Prudhomme and Julia Child. People turned to cookbooks and acquired recipes from friends. Restaurant reviews were written by a few “expert” reviewers in print media outlets.

Of course, the food world is not quite like the fashion world or the music world. There are no runways to strut down or award shows or “Top 10” charts for hit foods. What has changed the creation of food trends and increased the speed at which they spread and die out is the rise of social networking. Thanks to websites like Yelp and Foodspotting for restaurant reviews and other opinions, everyone – whether an experienced chef or a “regular Joe” diner — becomes an instant expert. Twitter and Facebook give people still more vehicles for spreading their unfiltered opinions widely and instantly. Popular chefs, bloggers, “eater tweeters,” and journalists all play a heightened role today.

All these forces come together in a hard-to-pinpoint combination to drive trends. It could be that something happens on a popular TV show and then it quickly goes viral over the web. The characters of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends on the cable TV show “Sex in the City” are credited with starting the cupcake craze, for instance. Other food trends start with a popular, media-savvy “celebrity” chef like Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay.

So what’s a food marketer to make of all this? How are we to know, for instance, if the current popularity of “gluten-free” is here to stay? Certainly the increased incidence of celiac disease is real, but we can also observe that there is clearly a larger non-celiac population buying these gluten-free products in the belief that they hold benefits to their health. As a food marketer, you have to watch the marketplace, monitor the blogs and web sites, and make your own judgment. A healthy dose of common sense certainly helps. I personally don’t have a crystal ball, but I do my best to make informed decisions based on credible authorities and what’s actually happening in the marketplace. Here are some tested suggestions, based upon my own experience in the food industry:

• Read trade magazines, blogs, etc. for your industry.
• Talk to your peers at networking events and trade shows.
• Make judgments based on your target consumer and category. Don’t jump too fast on the hottest trend unless your consumer is similarly inclined.
• Feel free to contact Emerging Brands Marketing at 978-468-6123 for advice and recommendations

To read more about how food trends get started, read more here.

Related articles about food trends
Food Trends – Why We Eat the Way We Do
From the USDA – Dietary Recommendations and How They Have Changed Over Time