By Martin Schultz
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of a current article from Private Label Buyer, presented here for discussion.
The food industry has finally taken seriously what their marketing departments have been saying for years. No one has time anymore to cook, and families want their children to eat nutritious meals rather than relying on a regular diet of fast food.
"Providing a convenient meal solution for people on the go and who have no time to make a meal from scratch provides a great opportunity for the private label processor," noted Shawn Dellevoet, business development director at Toronto-based frozen food supplier, Morrison Lamothe.
Private label processors - moving beyond price alone - are increasingly fighting for market share in the convenience meal market on such attributes as quality, appearance and flavor. This involves marketing products that offer a different kind of taste experience, a more intense traditional flavor, or an especially attractive plate appearance or some added convenience attribute, such as extremely fast preparation time.
Also, more and more private label food manufacturers are offering items with a more pronounced nutritional emphasis, either with undesirable ingredients lessened or removed (such as sugar, trans-fat, saturated fat and cholesterol) or with ingredients deliberately included (like omega-3).
To put it all into perspective, it was just a few years ago that consumers purchased meal packs based only on convenience and price. No refrigerated pizza, for example, came close to tasting like the restaurant version. Today, however, grocery store refrigerated pizzas are offered in a variety of styles (thin-crust, deep-dish, four-cheese, California-style) that have an authentic flavor and aroma and come with easy-to-follow cooking instructions at a huge range of price points. The grocery store has discovered it can compete directly with pizza delivery, and it's begun to take on other eating establishments too.
For instance, Alexandria, Va.-based Cuisine Solutions Inc. has developed a premium range of 300 fully cooked, vacuum-packed frozen entrees and sauces.
"Among our chef-created recipes, for example, we offer a Brazilian-derived Picanha seared beef sirloin dinner," said Lilian Lau, marketing manager for Cuisine Solutions. "Each recipe comes with its own unique sauce. The dishes are all-natural, and have no added antibiotics or hormones. But what we think makes them especially attractive is that they suggest a feeling of sophistication."
Morrison Lamothe produces value-type microwaveable dinner items, including pastas, meat pies and soups. But it also has a line of premium dinners for more discriminating consumers.
"We offer sharable appetizers like pastry-enrobed brie," explained Mr. Dellevoet. "For the really sophisticated dinner party, we have a salmon wellington."
Discussion Questions: Have you noticed a similar improvement in convenient dinner selections by supermarket's store brands? What's driving the improvement? What else could private label processors be doing to compete better with major brands or even restaurants?