Posts Tagged marketing

Eating Healthy

Something happened on the roll-up to the month of March. Maybe it was the unusual weather extremes that plagued all parts of the country. Maybe it was the bad economic news and the long list of woes affecting the general population. Whatever the exact cause, one fact is clear: All the healthy eating kick-off promotions that are normally part of the January lifestyle alerts went nowhere. February was a long month of a blur, and now look where we are.

Whole Foods has decided to take its healthy message up a notch. Not that this is the first time this year they have focused their staff and customers on strategies to improve their healthy lifestyle, but this time the emphasis is on the Whole Body section of the store (and online) withe the emphasis on edfucating customers with lectures and podcasts to promote healthy energy. The philosophy focuses on an energy boost with good nutrition and smart shopping. BTW, whatever Whole Foods has done recently has positively improved their bottom line: They are a healthier company.

Fresh Direct is making it easier for NY shoppers who are already time-stressed to get on the health bandwagon. The online grocer with its commitment to farm-fresh foods just introduced a free app that’s compatible with the iPhone and the iPod touch to let customers create new orders or modify current ones. New customers will love this incentive as they’ll receive a 15% savings on their first two orders by signing up with the company and then using the app. That works.

Wegmans continues to expand its healthy eating selections under the category of “Food You Feel Good About.” Sub-categories include meals under 500 calories. There are various commonsense tips and strategies (that are worth reminding us) such as fill up half your plate with fruit and vegetables.principle3_Large

Spring’s official start is still 3 weeks away and swimsuit parading is months from then. Take advantage of the promotions, shop smart and join the health brigade. No matter the grocer or the chain, the emphasis is the same: We can all take advantage of strategies to improve our shopping experience and improve our overall health.

The advice is readily available and free. Now it’s up to us to follow it and eat healthy.

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Food News: Wrap It

It’s that time again; the time we look back and see all the stories we did not write about. Here are some of the highlights:

Taxing junk food. The discussion goes on as it does with the soda tax. Some new studies indicate that people would pay attention if there were an additional charge placed on this “select” group of items. If that’d be the case, then we might have scored a victory in the obesity battle. At least a first round offensive.

Memory loss. Now I’ve got your attention! Even though the study was funded by Welch’s Grape Juice, it bears watching. Findings from the British Journal of Nutrition say that Concord grape juice may help individuals with early memory changes. This is not the first such study, or I doubt the last, linking the benefits derived from grape products. If it works with wine, why not the basic grape juice beverage?

Prices rising. Some grocery stores have decided enough with the reduced prices and multiple offers to get you in the door. They are increasing prices where they can. This is in response to some hopeful signs that companies are noting in terms of inflation numbers. One of the big problems will remain: Will national brands continue to suffer at the expense of in-house labels? Maybe we are just different consumers now, and the stores need to acknowledge that.

Gluten-Free. The newest entrant in the gluten-free flour aisle is none other than King Arthur Flour, one of the oldest companies selling whole wheat flour. Do you need many more signals how strong and growing the G-F market is? When the big guys get in the space, someone has clearly done his homework. The market definitely expects to see more products. The company’s line includes multi-purpose flour, and seven mixes including chocolate cake.

Food Rules. Michael Pollan owns the space of for elevating our food knowledge and thinking. His latest book, Food Rules, is literally a thumb-thru guide of quirky observations (”It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car”) and logical comments (”Buy your snacks at the farmers’ market). His thought-provoking comments should  help us select better foods and eat healthier. We’re talking a fast read and a fun purchase for you and those you love. You will have lots to think about and most likely make some lifestyle adjustments.food rules

Tomatoes. Now is the time to start your seeds. The Florida crop, as the markets can easily attest, has been hard hit. Prices are high and selection is unimpressive. Think spring.

Coffee. Always a little news to perk you up. Coffee’s benefits are in line to help lessen diabetes (assuming you do not add a cup of sugar to each consumed cup). This latest study focused on Native Americans and uncovered a significantly lower risk of developing diabetes from those drinking multiple cups of coffee.

That’s the way I like to end a week!

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Snow and Chili

What a perfect pair: Today, celebrate National Chili Day,and visit your favorite local spot and grab a bowl of hot goodness. We’re divided into camps of beans-no beans, meat-no meat, and the strangest one of all: Toppings-no toppings. No matter how you enjoy chili, Today’s the day.

A large number of restaurants have figured out a marketing plan for the day to help drive traffic inside. A free bowl of chili is the way to go! A Washington DC area spot, Hard Times Cafe, has the perfect enticement: Free Chili all day long! Your choice: Texas, Cincinnati, Veggie.

Hard to be a Washingtonian and not think of Ben’s Chili Bowl. No holiday necessary to pop in for their famous half smoke topped with chili or just a big bowl of the hot stuff. Tradition.ben's

If you’re in Cincinnati, a city that has its own food trend, Cincinnati Chili, then head over to one of the Gold Star Chili locations (in Cincinnati and in neighboring states) as they get ready to join the festivities. Cincinnati chili lovers have a sweet flavor profile in their ingredient mix and often just shout-out Chili 5-ways, the works.

Texas chili, on the other hand, skips the beans and adds the firepower with some form of chili pepper.

If you’re snowed in and under, then there are plenty of basic recipes worth making. Have your at-home celebration with a cold brewski and watch the 7,000 hours of the Olympics you taped! Make it your way.

Chili today; spring a’comin’.

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A Simple Food Cover

As we all try to save money in any number of ways, we are always on the lookout for new products that might solve a simple problem. We consider plastic wraps wasteful and fear using them in the microwave (for good reason). We buy storage containers and then spend useless minutes searching for the accompanying lids, only to discover they do not fit as tightly on the second or third pass as they originally did. Aluminum foil is another expensive covering that increases environmental waste.

Worry no more. A new product, CoverMate Food Covers are just that: Covers. They may be the perfect solution to storage anxiety. That means they can fit tightly over a bowl, dish,  platter or whatever item is holding leftovers: No need to transfer food to another container. Besides their reusability, they also solve the microwave problem as they are microwave safe and have built-in vents that let steam escape during the reheating process.foodcover

To allay the greatest worry, they are BPA, latex, and PVC-free.

No more plastic wrap that promises to unroll easily and not stick to itself. These covers stretch-to-fit.

Food storage and food safety all in one simple marketing tool!

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The Power of Gluten-Free

We know that gluten-free products are literally increasing exponentially. Grocers are devoting more shelf space to this important category, and chefs are becoming more knowledgeable how to help the customer who needs a gluten-free menu. Nor are all baked goods stuck in the freezer section as more bakeries are making inroads into this important space and supplying grocers with breads with a longer shelf life.

Of course, if your needs are most strict as with celiac disease, then your requirements are quite different from those who just have a preference.  Dining out can pose a greater challenge, but there’s major improvement without the hassles of just a few years ago.

On the corporate scale, look at companies such as General Mills which have heavily advertised, front of label, their gluten-free line. Rice Chex and Corn Chex, two of the company’s long-standing cereals, now boast their special G-F properties. That’s great news as these products are readily available, and it means you can continue to make the popular Chex Mix as long as you add G-F pretzels such as those by Glutino.

If you follow strict guidelines, then ask stores you regularly shop for their G-F list. Many, such as Trader Joe’s, have quite an extensive product line, and having a printout makes shopping much easier when you know in advance what they carry. Some stores do a fabulous job having label tags that draw your eye to a product that qualifies.

If you are better off without gluten, so-called gluten intolerant, you’ll notice an increase in the number of familiar, everyday products that now list the fact that they are G-F. Study the two labels in the accompanying image and note that the one on the right touts the fact it is Gluten-Free: An important marketing tool. With “Gluten-Free” on the ingredient list, they have expanded their marketing base. Whether they have always been free of gluten or not, there’s a true advantage, a potential new customer base, in spelling out that your product is G-F.

If you look at the ingredient breakdown, you’ll notice they now also identify themselves a having 0 mg of Cholesterol. (Even though they have always been listed as a zero fat product, they want the zero cholesterol specific spelled out, too). Another marketing wave?

The breadth of product choices makes shopping in this category significantly easier than it did even a year ago as G-F product launches continue to increase.

Welcome aboard.

lea & Perrins

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Food Rocks: A Television Feast

So much Monday quarterbacking focuses on the plays, for some the memorable parts of the game.

Me: I focus on the food ads (or that memorable part of the game), and there were a few that have people still laughing.

The 3 big players: Coke, Denny’s, and Doritos.

The score: Denny’s will fill ‘em in on Tuesday, Grand Slam free day, but in the process am sure the PETA folks are lining up. Maybe a few too many chicken jokes or is that reality placement?

Coke and Doritos performed well throughout the game and came up with a few winners.

Should do a slap laugh at enlisting Betty White in a memorable Mars (Snickers) ad–get that energy bar! Whatta winner!snickers

Can’t leave out the brews. It was a close call whether the Clydesdale’s would make it, but thankfully the love bit was a winner.

If you wanna see the staying power of ads, check out Mo Rocca’s piece on CBS Sunday Morning. This will show you the power of an ad and give you a quick sociological understanding of our demographics.

No matter what your beef is or which team came out a winner in your play book, the food ads always win.

They just keep marching on.

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Burger Business Piling Up

It’s fun to walk the neighborhoods and find signs that indicate a new restaurant is in the works. One of my favorite taped messages says: “Coming as soon as we can.” Think that summarizes a lot of our dining emotions. We’ll be there if the price is right, if you can do a good job, if you understand your product…as soon as that is all in place, set our table.

Sometimes the news comes via an awning. Not every new enterprise has the money or feels the necessity to cover up the old tenant’s signature so the awning sends the message; this is especially true when a sibling is about to emerge across town. With burgers, the news seems to be most eagerly anticipated. As we’ve noted, the burger concept is alive and well and seems to have little difficulty welcoming the latest entrant. In this case, burgers are just a part of a rather extensive menu!IMG_1072

The number 5 seems to be a magical information conveyance. After all The Five Guys chain took over the Washington DC region before rolling out nationally. Not everyone favors the same 5 toppings so they offer free peanuts while you wait for their cooked-to-order menu. The strategy of filling cooking time seems to work if you judge the space by the crowds!

Plenty of big name chefs have found a second life in the burger business (let’s add to that list Michael Landrum, Marcus Samuelsson, Michael Mina, Hubert Keller, and…the list is long). Why not? After all we’re talking about one of the country’s most hyped food groups. Not everyone serves just the beef variety; there’s the lobster, the lamb, the turkey, the veg, and the house specialty, whatever that is. The price seems to go from reasonable to stratospheric. Plenty in the middle!

No reason not to be a participant in this trendy space. Bring on the toppings.

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Hold the Wheat; Eat the Popcorn

Popcorn_Bowl-thumbThe “other” flours are finding new-found popularity in this heightened allergy world that quickly points the finger at wheat products, especially whole wheat. Not just obvious, allergic reactions, but there’s plenty of medical discussions and research about behavior-altering reactions from the wheats. Did you know you could buy rice flour, potato starch flour, or tapioca flour? Pay attention, these products, and other similar non-wheat flours, are not that difficult to find anymore; they are gaining greater visibility on grocery shelves.

If you want to make a traditional bread or pancake recipe, you need to approximate all-purpose flour (primarily, regular wheat) with the above ingredients or a combination of them. For instance, if you are using rice, potato starch, and tapioca flours, you achieve the accustomed flour milled consistency by following a 6:1:1 ratio or 2 C rice flour, 1/3 C potato starch flour, and 1/3 C tapioca flour. Sure there are lots of recipes that call for extra thickeners, but the most basic simulation uses the flours in and of themselves.

We bash corn products continually as the villain in high fructose corn syrup and its alter-ego, obesity, but wheat has clearly achieved its own villainous persona. As more people experience allergic responses to certain foods, nutritionists frequently recommend eliminating wheat products all together. When you go on a wheat-free diet, where do you get the all-important fiber?

Figure out the foods you can handle and consider the obvious ways to get fiber into your wheat-free diet. If other factors are not interfering, then fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts should do the trick.

You can easily tolerate the wheat-free lifestyle, if you plan ahead and think about how much fresh popcorn you want daily!

That just might do the trick.

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Anheuser-Busch Scores A Big One

base_mediaAll that research. All for naught. Running around. Checking the Internet. Making some calls and then–right there: Anheuser-Busch’s Gluten-Free Beer: Redbridge. The beer is made from sorghum and is free of wheat and barley. So people who need to be G-F do not need to miss out on beer.

Gotta figure the few places I went looking for G-F beer had some kind of an issue with the supplier or they would have stocked the product. After all there were plenty of other Bud family members lined up on the shelves and in the refrigerated sections. One store told me they tried to get G-F beer but price gouging was making it too hard to carry as few people were willing to pay $12 for a 6-pak.

What they didn’t tell me is the real story as this product is readily available once you find out that you do not need to go exotic but can find the beer in the Bud family! The irony is that several sales people, at different stores, told me that they get several requests every week for a G-F beer. Guess what Redbridge is priced similar to many other Bud products regardless of its wheat-free characteristics! No price gouging; just a lager.

Stock the products consumers want. Finding the distributor is not difficult. Stores are missing their mark as the G-F market continues to grow.

Caps off for a cold stein.

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Reinventing Tapioca: A Trend with Stickiness

Let me begin with the ultimate disclaimer: I doubt if I’ve ever made tapioca pudding or given much thought to tapioca. Now it is the darling of the industry as it serves as a base and a major ingredient for the growing gluten-free marketplace. Tapioca products have literally found a new life and gained a cult following as the secret ingredient in oh so many products that can now boast of their gluten-free status.

I had to take a giant step backwards to learn exactly what tapioca is. I was reminded about the beginning days of Atkins type products which were miraculously sweetened with pear juice. Who knew then and who knows now? What is this thing called manioc? We are familiar with the cassava plant and its root so we actually know the origins of manioc and tapioca. Not that hard. Tapioca historically has been considered a major thickening agent or the fun part of trendy bubble tea.

Its continual rise to the top tier of popularity is due to its special place in the gluten-free universe. In striving to locate products that are wheat-free, you’ll likely see tapioca as a primary ingredient, especially in gluten-free breads. Tapioca achieves rock star status as a saving grace of this wheatless universe.tapiocabread

Many will shrug. Others will acknowledge that in the efforts to lessen the ingredients, we are reintroducing old flavors and products that have been given a new life.

Perfect: Less is more.

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