Our Troubling Relationship with Trends
Chickpea pasta maker Banza has announced that they will be partnering with BFY pizza chain Oath to produce a new line of chickpea-based pizzas. The new pizza crusts will replace Oath’s previous gluten free crust. The news comes on the heels of Banza launching chickpea pizzas and pizza crusts in retail late last year.
UK retailer Waitrose has introduced a new Gut Healthy line in their Holistic Living private label range. The range consists of dairy and non-dairy products infused with pre and probiotic ingredients. Products include fruit smoothies, frozen yogurts, granolas and kefir yogurts. The Holistic Living range represents a large bet by the retailer, spanning hundreds of products across dozens of categories.
Kellogg’s-owned RXBar has launched their first line of plant-based protein bars. Using a blend of pea and almond protein, instead of their usual egg white, RXBar delivers 10g of protein per bar, without added sugar. Available initially at Target and Walmart, the new bars come in two flavors: Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip.
Trader Joe’s has launched an Organic Spicy Honey Sauce. Made with organic honey, vinegar and chili peppers, this new sauce is recommended as a topping for veggies, shrimp tacos and even ice cream. Available at Trader Joe’s throughout the US.
So What? Chickpeas, gut health, plant-based and hot honey—current consumer obsessions or old news trends?
One of the biggest dangers to your innovation pipeline isn’t your competitor’s speed to market, your ideation methods or even your manufacturing constraints, its your proximity to consumer trends. However, before you get defensive and rattle off all the industry reports and trend treks your company sponsors, I’m not here to browbeat you about being behind on ‘what’s new and what’s next.’ In fact, I’m here to tell you the opposite—you’re probably too far ahead.
Being competitive in food & bev means surrounding yourself with trend info. Ever since startups started disrupting the industry a decade ago, corporations have been ingesting trend data voraciously, paranoid about missing out on the ‘next big thing.’ If a fringe diet, novel ingredient or unique appliance is showing any traction, it gets talked about fast. While the speed of trend intelligence may be the advantage that propels one company ahead of its competition, it also has significant downsides that we rarely talk about.
To showcase this, let me present what I call the Corporate Trend Response Curve:
Peak of Overzealousness: In the early phases, when an interesting trend is just starting to pop with niche groups, the industry functions as an echo chamber. As soon as a few agencies and consulting groups share similar insights on a topic, it gives companies a false sense of certainty and immediacy. All the dots appear to be connecting, momentum on Trend X begins and soon its all the industry can talk about. Everyone in the company starts to think they have already missed out on something big.
Plunge of Disappointment: The feeling of already being behind funds an accelerated timeline of research, development, testing and launch. However, the company’s new product is met with dismal sales. The envisioned line extensions and generous funding are quickly shelved. The internal story becomes that Trend X was a non-starter, a red herring that shouldn’t have been chased.
Slope of Skepticism: A few years go by and several big competitors launch products based on Trend X. Internally, people scoff. Even as these products gain traction in the marketplace, people are quick to dismiss any effort to reengage efforts on Trend X. After such negative experiences earlier, many write it off as a fool’s errand.
Ascent of Paranoia: Competitors have now gained share with products based on Trend X—the company is losing volume. However, after hearing about this trend for years, most people in the company see it as being ‘over and done with’ (“cauliflower is so 2018”). Only with significant effort, and hedging to prevent another failure, does the company launch a product based on the ‘old’ trend.
So, in essence, food companies miss out twice on opportunities because they misread trends. They ‘jump the gun’ at the beginning when the trend is still niche but internally hyped, and again at its mainstream peak when they assume they’ve already missed their chance (even when it has really just started to take off in mainstream).
How does a company avoid this? The most obvious piece of advice is to never lose touch with your target consumers. Paying attention to trends is always important, but only if you have a foot in the reality of their real-world progression. Having your finger on the pulse of your consumer stops you from launching a product too early and prevents you from believing that a trend has run its course (just because everyone in the company thinks its yesterday’s news). However, I’d also stress the importance of building a portfolio of patience. Too many companies can’t sit on a new trend or an insight because they are always running with a near empty pipeline. When you must bring news and volume to your business, nebulous trends become more appealing and questionable BASES results can be easily ignored. The best companies leave room for longer-range innovation that allows a trend to reach the correct level for adoption.
Remaking Eden
You can’t open a food industry publication these days without reading something about ‘regenerative agriculture.” Everything from cheese, to potatoes to eggs are being produced and marketed with this new moniker, even though its exact definition is still being hashed out.
Even with all this investment, the question remains whether regenerative agriculture will be accepted by consumers and how companies should market it. Is regenerative agriculture the next iteration of organic or something new? As prices on organic products come down and enter mainstream, purchase of organic products has increased, but trust in its claims have not. Can food and beverage companies just do a ‘find & replace’ on current organic messaging and inject their products with new vigor? The more I study consumers, the more I think that regenerative ag represents a new opportunity and needs a new message.
The promise undergirding claims of ‘natural,’ ‘organic’ and even non-GMO, is that ‘purity’ still exists in a world tainted by modern practices. The storyline is that we pay more for these products because they are rare, their producers are ‘artisans,’ and/or care has been taken to grow these products in such a way as to preserve something that has been nearly lost in our industrialized world. Or, to put it another way, products with these claims allow consumers to obtain their own piece of an evaporating Eden.
However, this narrative has a scaling problem. When organic was niche, the ‘little slice of Eden’ concept made sense. Like a precious metal, organic products felt like a finite resource to be cherished and treasured. But now that organic products can be found in every gas station and Walmart, it feels less believable to many consumers and more like marketing spin.
For that reason, I think regenerative agriculture should not follow organic’s narrative. Instead, regenerative agriculture should capitalize on the current zeitgeist flowing through the global culture: revolution. We see it in everything from politics (positively and negatively), to work, to economics and even other aspects of agriculture (see plant-based ‘meats’). People are tired of celebrating the small wins within a system they see as otherwise flawed. Instead, there is a growing desire to rethinking systems anew. Regenerative agriculture should embody this thirst for change. Instead of preserving a slice of Eden, regenerative agriculture could be about remaking Eden.
This narrative is scalable, and transformative. Unlike organic and natural, this story does not reject technology as antithetical to the cause, it embraces it as a positive tool. This means that modern farming technology, robotics and even bioengineering, could be incorporated into the developing story. Just like carbon sequestration startups (e.g., Blue Planet) that message their benefit as generating value while returning the Earth to a better place, the message of regenerative agriculture could be about feeding the world while healing it.
Don’t Bring Sexy Back
Quick and convenient grain and legume brand A Dozen Cousins has introduced Bone Broth Rices. The pouched rice is pre-cooked in bone broth giving each serving 7g of protein. Ready in 60-seconds, varieties include Sea Salt Rice, Classic Broth Rice, and Spanish Yellow Rice.
Buzzfeed’s Tasty and General Mills have launched Tasty Dinner Kits. Currently available at Kroger, with expansion to additional retail forthcoming, Tasty Dinner Kits supply consumers with a seasoning, sauce and a rice or pasta. Consumers add their own protein and vegetable. Varieties include Chicken Tikka Masala, Creamy Salsa Verde Chicken, Korean-Style BBQ Beef and Creamy Tuscan Chicken.
Whole grain bread brand Oroweat, a division of Bimbo, has launched 100% Whole Wheat Small Slice. The new bread is not only cut thinly, its also of diminutive size. This makes the resulting slices only 70 calories each, rough half the calories of other breads.
So What? One of the rarely mentioned aspects of corporate innovation is that you first must market ideas inside the company before they have a chance of getting outside the company. You’d think that, armed with solid insights, great ideas and decent concept reception, ideas would be green-lighted automatically. However, that’s never been my experience. Ideas and strategies must be ‘sold in’ to the right players with a combination of logic, tenacity and tact.
What also helps are ‘sexy’ product concepts. If you are showing ideas to a team, novelty almost always wins out. “Wow!” and “I’ve never thought of/seen that before” always rise to the top because people (even experienced professionals) usually equate new with better. That’s not to say that novel ideas aren’t sometimes also good, but more often, what the consumer wants and what the company can make money on, could be solved with a much simpler—but boring—solution.
In fact, the best innovation isn’t usually sexy. It uses the same ingredients, same process, same equipment, and is sold in the same category as your current products, but with one small twist it unlocks a new benefit. On paper, its easy to overlook, but to a consumer it could be a game changer.
When I look at the products listed above, I’m surprised they made it through the innovation gauntlet. Bone broth swapped for regular broth, re-flavored Hamburger Helper, and smaller bread. None are revolutionary concepts, but each deliver on real consumer needs, are utilizing existing capital, and will be margin accretive right out of the gate. I’ll take that any day over novel ideas that cost millions in capital and never recoup their ROI.
Things I’m Watching
Halo Top co-founder Doug Boulton is launching Gatsby, a new brand of lower calorie chocolate bars. Made with allulose, MCT oil and esterified propoxylated glycerol, a modified plant-based oil that tastes and functions like fat with fewer calories, the bars come in at 60-70 calories per serving (more than half the calories of normal chocolate). So What? Boulton is continuing to use a few key learnings from Halo Top with this new offering. (1) start with an indulgent offering (not an already healthy product); (2) imply (through messaging and brand—i.e., Gatsby) that the product formulation actually results in an elevated, even superior, product experience, not a compromise between health and taste; (3) counterintuitively, lead with calories to justify eating the whole bar without guilt.
NewGem Foods, makers of veggie-based sandwich wraps, has launched a new line of veggie-based sushi wraps. The new wraps offer a flavored, nutrient dense alternative to traditional nori. Patagonia Provisions has launched Breadfruit Crackers. Gluten free, nutritious, and environmentally sound, breadfruit is an under-utilized resource in mainstream food manufacturing. Julian’s Recipes has launched Cauli-Wafels and Cauli-Wafel sandwiches. Made from cauliflower and faba bean protein, the waffles supply 5g protein per serving. So What? While bread companies have tried to innovate with new products to satisfy low carb consumers (see these new keto-friendly hot dog buns) it is difficult to get the texture and flavor exactly right. Instead, its proving easier to switch to new bases that have less expectations and deliver more flavor. While I’m not certain if these products will stick around for the long run, they will likley change consumers habits and expectation, exerting pressure on mainstream bases to be more flavorful and innovative.
A new startup by MIT engineers is attempting to make artisan coffee as convenient as a Keurig. Cometeer starts with ultra-high quality coffee beans brewed into a ‘perfect’ concentrate. Frozen at -321F in 100% recyclable aluminum cups, the product is shipped to consumers to be melted with hot water and enjoyed. To date, the company has raised $50 million in startup funding. So What? One would think that convenient coffee was a solved issue, but the artisan-convenience coffee market looks to be only beginning. Environmental impact and lower quality has tainted equipment-led products like Nespresso and Keurig, pushing the processing to a centralized location and offering freshness through a new distribution chain and better packaging. There is a lesson to learn here about not giving up on categories that seem solved—there is always a better solution.