Food Education For Big Kids
One group ideal for these messages, however, is college students. Often living alone for the first time, these students are literally establishing the habits likely to guide them throughout their lives. With back-to-school articles timely, the Associated Press recently came out with a piece stressing that universities are looking to help freshmen avoid gaining weight […]
Health-Oriented Marketing
This trend calls for a change in the health-oriented marketing of food. In the supplement category, it means people are electing to buy a supplement that offers a clear solution to a specific problem, as in a supplement to keep joints healthy as opposed to a supplement to give them a lot of vitamin D. […]
Snack Insights
Having broadened their view of snacks beyond such items as chips, cookies, and crackers, consumers today are more likely to consider any small portion of food as a potential snacking candidate. Retailers, however, have not caught up to this new consumer thinking (while only 20% of consumers today define snacks traditionally, 40% of retailers still […]
Pundit Mailbag: Consumer-Focused
At virtually every food industry conference, there are 20 speakers who all repeat, like some kind of mantra, that we have to be consumer-focused, we have to serve the consumer, on and on. Yet in actual execution, I find that consumers are generally ignored or viewed in a very limiting way. I don’t think it […]
New Twist On New Product Introduction
One of the biggest problems in the produce industry is that shippers outside of the fresh-cut world often are totally focused on selling whatever products and packs they happen to produce. They don’t really think about their customers and how to serve them better. There is often significant underinvestment in developing new products. Here is […]
Latino Marketing Needs Improvement
Ethnic differences matter enormously in the food business, because tastes change very slowly. My family hasn’t lived in Eastern Europe for five generations and yet even my little guys like to go to the deli where we order various Eastern European favorites. So, without a doubt, if you are looking to sell to people of […]
Do Childhood Obesity Programs Work?
One of the pet causes is to change school eating programs from vending machines to breakfast, lunch and snacking options. The New York Times magazine did a major piece on the subject. The comeuppance, though, is that although there are many programs being promoted by all kinds of entities, we have no particular reason to […]
Putting Starbucks And McDonald’s
Into Perspective
Ever wonder how quickly Starbucks has grown or how big McDonald’s really is? Here is a great graphic to put things in perspective.
A Merchandising Tool That Works:
The Box
Stemilt has explored creating a carton in the past for everyday apple and pear shipping that would be decorative and striking on display, but the cost has always been too expensive to merit the effort. However, recent advancements in printing that have reduced costs allowed Stemilt to make the new cartons the standard. Stemilt’s black […]
Room For Improvement At New Wal-Marts
Wal-Mart promoted these stores as being heavily focused on international products, and I thought it was interesting that Wal-Mart opened two supercenters in one city, less than five miles from each other, on one day. So I took the family and convinced them this was a great way to spend a Sunday (fortunately, they were […]
