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Marketing Around the World

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

  • Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. will help launch Facebook Deals, a new competitor to Groupon, that allows consumers to find discounts at neighborhood businesses through Facebook Places. The chain will give a BOGO to consumers who use their smart phones to access the site as their over 1,000 locations. The brand uses its Facebook page to promote “food with integrity,” as well as more mundane things like restaurant openings.
  • Fair Trade Certified products continue to do well at grocery, increasing 24% during 2010.[1] Sales in mainstream channels grew faster (26%) than specialty grocers (22%) and natural grocers (16%), with ready-to-drink tea & coffee leading the way (39% increase and 33% respectively).
  • Kraft’s Cadbury division in India will roll out the Oreo brand. The move is intended to expand the presence of the Oreo brand in international markets, as well as move Cadbury away from its reliance on confections to include prepared foods from the Kraft portfolio.
  • Ajinomoto Co.is best known for its MSG and other seasonings, but it planning to spend $3.7bn over the next three years on acquisitions in territories like Brazil and Southeast Asian, the Middle East and Africa.

[1] Source: Fair Trade USA.

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Marketing Trends

Monday, April 23rd, 2012

  • Starbucks continues its push into alternative channels of distribution by partnering with Courtesy Products for in-room coffee service to hotels. Courtesy’s CV-1 on-demand brewed coffee system is used in a half-million hotel rooms in the U.S. The company says the in-room market is in its infancy, and sees the move as part of its roll-out of VIA for reaching non-restaurant coffee customers in this country and throughout the world.
  • General Mills has won support from the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) supporting its ads claiming its Progresso Light Soups are “Now Even Better.” The Campbell Soup Company had challenged the ad campaign, and General Mills was required to show how the product was improved (including increasing the size of chicken pieces, upping the veggies, improved beef quality, and a reduction in sodium.

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Marketing Around the World

Monday, April 16th, 2012

  • Marsh Supermarkets is changing the name of six Ohio stores to Main Street Markets. The chain has 99 locations in Indiana and Ohio, and will introduce a new logo, signs and in-store displays & tags to support the move. Marsh has struggled against competition from Walmart and larger, better-capitalized rivals like Kroger.
  • Mobile marketing continues to spread: Weis Markets’ new mobile website ties in its weekly circulars, online coupons and remote ordering. Users can also register prescription refills and access a section called Healthy Living for recipes and questions for dietitians about healthy eating.
  • While you may not be paying attention to the Ivory Coast’s political turmoil in light of all that’s going on in the Arab world, the 30-day ban imposed on cocoa & coffee exports by President Alassane Ouattara has thrown the commodities markets for these items into disarray.
  • In the “unflattering” category, ASDA was found by the UK’s “pricing police” (The Advertising Standards Authority) to have violated regulations by failing to indicate its price guarantee (ala parent company Walmart) did not apply to all items. The decision followed complaints by rivals Morrisons and Tesco, who maintained the policy is misleading because “it does not cover non-grocery items, those specifically excluded, or that savings claims are about general pricing and not specific items.”

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Marketing Around the World

Monday, April 9th, 2012

  • Never bet against Bentonville: just when the so-called “dollar stores” look to run away with things, Walmart is asking suppliers for bids on “opening price point” goods to compete against them. At the same time, grocery chains like Shop Rite are offering “club store sizes without the membership fee.”
  • Applebee’s is continuing its partnership with Weight Watchers by adding three new WW items to its menu, including Chipotle Lime Chicken, •Spicy Pineapple Glazed Shrimp & Spinach and Steak & Potato Salad.
  • Japan’s Kirin Holdings Company, Ltd. will join at joint venture with China Resources Enterprise, Ltd. to produce non-alcohol beverages  in China. Kirin’s investment is said to be $400MM, and make up 40% of the JV.
  • Demonstrations have broken out in Germany over the discovery of dioxin in pork products and eggs, apparently from contaminated feed. The government has vowed tougher inspections, and Russia has banned German pork imports. Dioxin is among the most-toxic substances on earth,[1]though traces of it are present in most human fat cells.

[1] Better-known as the major ingredient in Agent Orange.

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Marketing Around the World

Friday, March 30th, 2012

  • Denny’s is trying to invoke its 50-plus-years as a dining establishment in an advertising campaign casting it as the “24/7 family diner.”
  • Broad Street Licensing Group’s Montclair, NJ neighbor, Mesob Ethiopian Restaurant, is encouraging diners to make us of Quick Response (QR) codes. Consumers with smart phones can download software NeoReader or KaywaReader to scan the codes for product details, business card data, or linking to websites with targeted content. In Mesob’s case, QR codes displayed unobtrusively at the tables help diners access videos about Ethiopian coffee (including a coffee ceremony), traditional Ethiopian clothing, and food preparation in the restaurant’s kitchen. The positives include fewer complaints from diners about wait times.
  • In the U.K., discount grocers ALDI and LIDL are leading the pack with sales increases of nearly 10% for the 12 weeks through Jan. 23, 2011.[1] While Sainsbury’s saw a 5.7% increase, Tesco and ASDA (#1 and #2 respectively) saw grow in keeping with the overall market upswing of 4.2%. The increase in the sales of the discounters is balanced by their meager market share (5.9% and 6.1% respectively).
  • Elsewhere in the UK, Nestlé has purchased CM&D Pharma, whose Fostrapchewing gum is being tested on people with kidney disease. The acquisition is part of Nestlé’s goal of developing foods that help fight specific diseases and are not just “healthier for you.”

[1] Source: Kantar Worldpanel.

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Sacre bleu! Ce n’est pas magnifique

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

A team of 15 chefs including Alain Ducasse (of London’s Dorchester) and Joel Robuchon (holder of 26 Michelin stars) are working to protect and expand French cooking by launching a chef lobbying group called the College Culinaire de France.

The impetus for the move may have been France’s being shut out of the top three awards for 2010’s Bocuse D’Or, the “Oscar” of French cooking, which went to nominees from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. All three countries enjoy government backing for its culinary trades. The goals are, as one might expect, somewhat vague, but include training a new generation of master chefs and opening a museum to promote new products.

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Marketing Around the World

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

  • In app news, the website Chocolate Travel has created “Chocoholic Traveler,” an iPhone app that helps users find chocolatiers, cooking classes, factory tours and anything else chocolate.
  • After getting really innovative with oatmeal, Caribou Coffee is now adding hot breakfast sandwiches. Wow. Such innovative thinking!
  • Proof that India’s consumer market is becoming important to multinationals is news that Groupe Danone, the world’s largest yogurt company and owner of the Dannon yogurt line among others, is looking to acquire food companies there. The likely target is baby food maker Dumex India. Danone already owns the rest of Dumex’s Asian operations from its purchase of the Dutch baby food conglomerate Numico for €12.3bn ($17.18bn) in 2007. Earlier this year it merged with Russia’s Unimilk dairy group, bringing with it 21% of that country’s rapidly-expanding milk products market.
  • With the value proposition still dominating most grocery retailers’ thinking, the news that Roundy’s Supermarkets has hired Revionics to help optimize its prices seems like a logical next step. Consumers often complain about price fluctuations, with the “high/low” rotation of pricing a source of frustration and dissatisfaction.
  • And finally, as testament to our geek side, acreage for Winter wheat planted so far is up 10% from this time a year ago. Bakers of the world rejoice!

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The Tug of War for… Kitchen Grease?

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

It may be truer than ever that “grease” is the word.

In the old days, restaurants paid rendering companies to haul away their used cooking oil and grease.

Now the push for non-petroleum fuels has firms like VA-based Greenlight Biofuels paying restaurants for their leftovers. The price of “yellow grease” that used to be recycled into pet food and livestock feed has risen to over $2. The result is that renderers and biofuels companies are finding themselves in legal battles as they try to hold onto clients. Greenlight even found itself the subject of a police complaint (as well as a lawsuit) alleging they’d “stolen” the equipment of a competitor after restaurateurs asked them company to take over their grease disposal contracts.

Tony Soprano, are you listening? Brings new meaning to the term “grease gun.”

In Other Marketing News

  • Kraft has found its Wheat Thins are less-likely to be eaten with a topping, so they are promoting them as salty snacks and not crackers.
  • With conventional grocery marketing rapidly switching over to digital applications, Winn-Dixie will let Smartphone users create and manage shopping lists through a new app. The app will also find the closest Winn-Dixie store, and access sales & specials.
  • With ethnic-targeted marketing, especially among Hispanics, the new rage, the results of a new study[1] should warm the cockles of marketers’ hearts: Hispanics reportedly use the Internet as their primary source of information about products & services. What’s more, unlike many consumers who resist online ads, the group is interested in technologies that provide coupons, demonstrations and other shopping assistance.
  • With the rise of “craft” beers, the question of what qualifies as “small” has been settled by the board of directors at The Brewers Association. In the past, “craft brewer” was limited to breweries producing no more than 2MM barrels annually, but that ceiling has been raised to 6MM.

[1] Source: Spanish-language media network Terra.

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Marketing Around the World

Friday, March 9th, 2012
  • In a bit of inspired marketing, Wegmans Food Markets has put empty bags of its Food You Feel Good About Just Picked frozen fruits on display in it pharmacies to showcase healthy eating.
  • Swiss Farms is expanding its drive-through grocery store concept into New Jersey. The concept features 3-sided glass walls and giant LCD TV monitors to help customers choose from a variety of take-away items, including soups, rotisserie chicken,  milk, bread, drinks, produce, meals-to-go, eggs, ice cream etc., all without getting out of their cars.
  • Italy could become the first country to ban totally plastic shopping bags that are not biodegradable. Retailers there currently use 20 billion bags a year (1/5th of all European use), and will be allowed to use up their existing stocks. After that, it’s paper, biodegradable plastic or cloth bags only. Two hundred of the country’s 8,000+ municipalities have plastic bag bans.
  • PepsiCo UK claims in a newly-released environmental sustainability report that its operations will be fossil fuel-free by 2023, and will cut carbon emissions from its key growers 50% by 2015.

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Marketing Around the World

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

  • Breakfast remains a bright spot for most fast food restaurants, and nee moves are afoot: Chick-fil-A will launch a spicy chicken biscuit, McDonald’s will offer oatmeal, and Wendy’s is testing its third try at a breakfast menu with an oatmeal bar and a Panini.[1]
  • The Monterey Bay Aquarium now has an app called “Project FishMap” that lets consumers share the names and locations of restaurants and fish markets offering sustainable seafood.
  • In other sustainability marketing, Marriott International is touting “Future Fish” that has targeted supplying at least 50% of its 780 full-service hotels from “certified sustainable, responsible fisheries and aquaculture farms.”
  • The animal rights guerilla lobbying group PETA is using BJ’s Wholesale’s shareholder resolution process to pressure the retailer to purchase its turkeys suppliers using “controlled-atmosphere killing” (CAK) by the end of 2012 and chicken vendors within four years.
  • Costa Rica’s number one export destination for its orange juice crop is the US.[2] It totaled 24,011 metric tons in 2009 (total value: $33.8MM). The report is attached to this edition of Food Industry Newsletter.
  • Don’t look now: Scandinavia’s dairy cooperative Arla Foods amba, and Germany’s Hansa-Milch eG dairy cooperative are merging. Cows all over Europe are contented at this hour.
  • Feed contaminated with industrial fats apparently led to dioxin in meat & eggs in Germany, and has resulted in prosecutors there launching an investigation into the incident.
  • Archer Daniels Midland Company has acquired Alimenta (USA), Inc. from Geneva-based Alimenta S.A., its partner in Golden Peanut Company, LLC. As a result, ADM will control Golden Peanut’s seven facilities in the U.S. and one in Argentina.
  • And Pizza Hut has opened its 500th restaurant in China.

[1] The new menu is being tested in select cities, including Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Shreveport and Louisville.

[2] Source: The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

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