Produce Marketing | Fresh Produce Marketing | Retail Produce | Brand Strategist | Packaging Produce | Branding Firms

I’m passionate about packaging. Whether sticker, bag, punnet or pack, I believe any produce package can be optimised to better reach out to the consumer and help drive sales. But I want to focus on PLU stickers for a moment.

PLU stickers have limited space. I get that. However, the number of stickers I see that waste the opportunity to have some kind of consumer message on them staggers me.

Take the mandarin stickers in this photo. While they tell me the variety, this knowledge does not help if I don’t know what the key characteristics of a variety are. For example, I would think some mandarin consumers want mandarins that are sweet, seedless and easy to peel. If you are marketing a mandarin with one or several of these characteristics, I think it is really important to tell consumers the ‘buyer benefit’…and you tell it on the fruit. You can’t always rely on point of sale signage to tell your story for you.

I can hear your objections already. “But Lisa,” I hear you say, “My mandarins have seeds. Why would I put that on the sticker?” You put it on the sticker because it is the shoppers right to choose whether she wants to buy a mandarin with seeds or not. Why would you deny her that choice? Why would you choose to surprise a shopper (and potentially risk angering her) because you failed to advise her of a key product characteristic?

And remember, marketing is all about selling the benefit. So if your mandarin is really sweet but has a few tiny seeds, you word your sticker accordingly: “Super sweet with a few tiny seeds.” Depending on the shoppers’ needs, she can then weigh up whether she is willing to trade sweetness for seeds. It should be her choice…it is her money.

The other argument I also hear is, “But Lisa, everyone knows that a Murcott has seeds.” Really? I don’t know if a Murcott has seeds and I am in the produce business! The fact is, today’s consumers are very different than consumers ten years ago. For one thing, we are dealing with more demographic diversity now than we likely ever have in the past. Millennials, Gen Y, Gen X, Boomers. They all bring very different knowledge and awareness of fruit to the table.

Yes, the Baby Boomers who grew up with a mandarin tree in the back garden may inherently understand that a Murcott has seeds. But what about the Millennials who grew up in cities with parents who’ve never seen a mandarin tree? How would they know the fruit’s characteristics?

I know space on a sticker is limited. However, rather than put just the PLU code or a farm name or a variety name, why not try and see if you can incorporate some product descriptor? In the battle for share of stomach, you never know, it could be the little bits of information that make a lot of difference.

I recently spoke at the PMA Australia-New Zealand Conference in Brisbane. If you have never been to a PMA event, you are missing out. Combine great networking with new ideas and you get enough ‘oomph’ to keep you going all year! But I digress…

I get a huge thrill speaking at events like the PMA. I know most people don’t like to speak publicly, but I love it. The chance to throw out new ideas and test cutting edge subjects for market feedback is beyond compare. However, I do hate making mistakes when I speak. I want to fess up to a mistake I made during my PMA speech.

I am a pretty straight forward person – what you might call a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). As a result, if there is conflict about an issue, I am usually the one to bring it up. What I missed in Brisbane was acknowledging the elephant in the room.

You see, I spoke about fresh produce packaging and the importance of optimising the on-pack message. The context was if we want to drive sales or consumption growth, the only way we are going to get that growth is by driving substitution. We need shoppers to substitute out of packaged foods and replace it with fruit and veg. No easy task and one that is not helped by the fact that fresh produce fails to get it right with our packaging and what I call the ‘on-pack message’.

So during my PMA session, I talked about all this, showed examples of us (fresh produce) vs them (packaged foods) and compared and contrasted what we could do better in fresh produce packaging to drive more sales. About half way through the presentation I asked for questions…and that’s when the elephant in the room was pointed out.

“How do you do more with your on-pack message Lisa, when the retailers in Australia and New Zealand dictate the content?” Bam – there it was, on the table…the elephant in the room. It’s a fantastic question and an issue I would love to get some debate/discussion going on.

From my point of view as a packaging expert, I really struggle with the whole retailer brand issue for a few reasons.

1.       I believe it is contrary to current food trends. Everything in food trend analysis is saying that local and provenance are key interests of consumers – they want to know where their food comes from. Retailer branded packaging tends to look the same and be homogenous – which seems to go against the trend.

2.       Trust is another issue. Several years back I found an article that said retailer brands were some of the least trusted brands. However, the improved quality of house brand product in grocery may have changed that perception now.

3.       It seems like retail brand strategy for grocery has been applied with little differentiation to fresh produce, but they both operate on quite a different premise. A retail brand offer in grocery adds breadth or depth to a category dominated by manufacturer brands, giving the consumer MORE choice. Retail branding in fresh produce has ELIMINATED most grower brands, resulting in LESS choice. Segmentation is the key to adding value and creating a differentiated offer – by moving exclusively to retail brands in produce, I think the offer has been reduced.

4.       Growing is not the same as manufacturing. A grower takes pride in the product produced, wants to innovate and be better and wants to see that effort acknowledged via their brand. A retailer brand takes away grower pride, stops innovation and in the long term, reduces the viability of the category.

I know this is a contentious issue and I am saddened to see many grower brands suddenly disappear amid the strategy for homogenous retail branding. However, these issues seem to come full circle and I look forward to the time when we once again embrace grower brands in the produce department.

To those who attended my session in Brisbane…I apologise I didn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room. He was there – big and bold and hiding in the corner – but I was hoping I could just wish him away.

(Your turn. Share your thoughts by sharing this blog or comment using the Fresh Produce Marketing Facebook page.)

In the fruit and vegetable world, we rely on the belief we can change or influence consumer behaviour.

For example, we believe we can get consumers to eat more of Fruit A if we design a clever ad campaign. We believe we can get consumers to increase their purchase frequency of Vegetable B if we get the quality and size right. We believe we can get them to eat more of Produce Brand C if we redesign the logo to incorporate more colours and create a fresher feeling.

What if we are wrong? What if our assumptions are flawed? What if the reality is consumers aren’t going to eat any more fresh fruit or vegetables unless there is some cataclysmic event in their life or some significant new product development advancement. How would this change our marketing thinking? What would we do differently if we believed traditional marketing methods no longer worked?

The best strategic planning session I ever participated in was for one of the industry groups I work with in Australia. They brought in a ‘futurist’ but his role wasn’t to predict the future, it was to question our assumptions about the future. He made us pose questions to each other like, “We believe our product is healthy. What if data came out from a packaged food competitor that proved it wasn’t as healthy as we thought? How would our beliefs…and our accordant strategy change if that core ‘healthy’ assumption changed?” It was a powerful session.

For a moment, I want you to do the same. I want you to question the belief we can influence or increase consumption. We can’t. Now, what would you do? Now how would you spend your dollars?

For me as a marketing strategist, playing with this assumption opens up new opportunity thinking.

For example, given the increasing precedence of disease (diabetes, cancer, stroke), I would do more research to understand the immediate, then short and medium term dietary changes people make when suddenly diagnosed with a serious disease. I would want to know what foods “own” the dietary cure space. For example, when my aunt was diagnosed with cancer, she immediately made dietary changes. She cut out meat, cut out processed foods and overnight started eating more raw fruit, veg and nuts. A week before the diagnosis you could barely get her to look at raw broccoli, after the diagnosis she embraced it. This is what I mean by cataclysmic change. For a range of diseases, who owns the food cure/solution space? This could be easily researched on the web and could lead to new marketing opportunities for fresh fruits and vegetables.

The second area of new opportunity thinking is to look for the inherent untapped phytonutrient goodness locked up in fruit and veg.

Another example. In my blog a while back, I wrote about a well marketed water called function: Urban Detox. To create the product, the development team researched a range of input ingredients looking for ones that had the benefits they were seeking for the drink’s very focused target market. One of the extracts they ended up using was a prickly pear extract.

Now, I’ve marketed some tricky products in my time, so I can’t imagine marketing fresh whole prickly pear is easy (although Frieda’s in the USA does it well), but think of the traction prickly pear marketing could gain leveraging off the extract work done for the function: Urban Detox water. Suddenly someone outside of traditional fruit and veg marketing has found untapped value in a challenging product to market.

So here’s your challenge: I want you to spend a few minutes thinking about what you currently do to drive the sales and consumption of your product. Consider your advertising, your PR, your R&D spend, etc. Got a picture in your head? Okay, now stop. Now, I want you to believe that none of it works, particularly if you are targeting Western markets. No matter how much you spend…or what you do, none of it will drive consumption. Now what would you do? How would you spend those dollars?

As we start to realise the Western stomach is full and people are not going to consume any more total food, working with a “flawed assumption” mindset might be what we need to drive increased consumption.

Your thoughts?

PS: Passionate about packaging? You can now follow me on Twitter (@broccolilady) and together we can learn from some great packaging examples.

My 24 May packaging tweet showed the back nutrition panel of a product called Vaalia kids vanilla yoghurt. This pack does a fantastic job of marketing its nutritional benefits in an easy, simple and ‘helpful friend’ tone. While it targets kids, it does a great job of talking to parents who are the purchase decision makers.

Here is what I liked about their on-pack messaging.

On the front, they’ve done several things really well.
• There is a focus on Omega3 but with the link being the kid benefit of “for brain function and concentration.” Omega3 is big right now so they’ve capitalised on this opportunity.
• They also refer to probiotics, no artificial colours and preservative free. This is not new but what I like is they’ve drawn out and highlighted the kid benefit with the simple smiley face statement saying, “packed with goodness.”

The pack’s front is good, but I think the back nutritional panel is where this product really excels.

Rather than just put the legally required nutrition panel, they have brought the often confusing nutrition panel to life with easy to understand benefit statements.
• Protein now gets linked with “for growing bodies”
• Fat gets highlighted as “low fat” and the statement “low GI for sustained energy and concentration”
• Calcium gets linked to “for strong bones and teeth”
• The probiotic additives get linked to “for happy tummies and immunity”

How often in fresh produce do we have a product that has nutritional benefits, but all we do is make the legally required statement? By understanding how packaged food marketers market their nutrition benefits, we can learn from the best to improve our own packaging and on-pack message.

Tar and feather me for the following admission, but I am an ABBA fan from way back. As a result, one of my favourite movies is Mamma Mia. There is one scene in the movie where Meryl Streep’s character says, “Plan. What plan? Goodness knows I have no plan.” I can’t help but feel there is a similarity between that line and retail fresh produce strategy.

I don’t mean to be critical of retail. I’ve never been a produce buyer or head of produce, so I am sure there are multiple challenges I am blissfully unaware of. However, one of the observations I feel I can make, is there are very few men (sorry – it seems to be a role where women don’t get a look in) I’ve met in the role that seem to have a strong, strategic vision for their produce category.

Case in point. A reader shared a story a few weeks ago. He was a fruit grower and had been approached by a retail partner to do a really down and dirty special. The rationale for the special? One of the retailer’s competitors had come out the week prior with a sharp special on the same product and this retailer wanted to ‘show them who could do the cheapest deal.’

There was no discussion of how this sharp price point fit into the retailer’s overall category strategy. There was no discussion about the shopper – are shopper’s moved to purchase more volume or more frequently by such a low price? There was no discussion about the long term message this sharp price point sent about the product…or the retailer. The only thing the retailer could see by wanting the special was the need to beat the competition. (As an aside, I think this need to win, even related to pricing, is a guy thing. I don’t think many women in the same role would approach it the same way!)

The question to be asked is, why does there appear to be a lack of both produce department strategy and individual commodity strategy at retail?

I think it boils down to three issues:
1. Lack of a fresh produce brand/positioning strategy
2. Lack of information regarding consumer drivers
3. Lack of outside the box thinking

1. Lack of a Fresh Produce Brand/Positioning Strategy
Years ago, I did one of the Produce Marketing Association’s retail tours. We went and visited (from memory) a Schnucks Market. The statement on their store signage said, “Everyday low prices” yet inside, we entered into a very modern and upscale store. There were black and white tiles on the floor, a piano with a regular pianist that came in and played and the entire store had a very upmarket feel. At the time, I can remember struggling with the incongruence of their brand strategy. Here I was in a store that felt very expensive, yet the livery was telling me the store was about ‘everyday low prices.” The two just didn’t add up.

This is what I mean by lack of brand/positioning strategy. In my 20+ years of produce marketing, I have never had a retailer review their brand or positioning strategy with me or ask me how my client’s product or produce marketing spend fitted in with their brand strategy.

In the absence of clear brand strategy and positioning, the easiest fall-back position is price competitiveness. This is why retailers often feel the need to employ a “me too” price strategy to keep up with the competition. “If they go low, we’ll go lower” seems to be their mantra. It is an easy strategy to employ…but I would question whether it is successful in the long term.

2. Lack of Information Regarding Consumer Drivers
In the fresh produce industry, until quite recently, there has been a real lack of consumer insight. It is challenging to create a shopper driven strategy without shopper insights. Successful produce strategy, whether the overarching category strategy or the commodity level sub-strategy, has to be driven by both retailer brand/positioning strategy and grower supply strategy. By melding these two, a strong consumer offer can be created that drives both commodity and category growth.

3. Lack of Outside the Box Thinking
Not to push my own barrow, but I think it is helpful to bring in outside the box thinkers to strategy sessions. Bringing in someone outside the ‘internal team’ or someone who is not a supplier with a vested interest adds new insights to the brand development, brand strategy or brand positioning process. Outsiders with expertise bring new thinking to the table, challenge conventional thinking and unexpected results are often the outcome.

I am an optimist at heart and I believe there is significant growth potential still untapped in the fresh produce industry. However, strategies beyond price and “me too” are required.

Your Turn:
Do you have a successful strategy/positioning that permeates your organisation? Have you worked with companies where you felt there was a real congruence in their strategy – and you were able to make this work for your business? I welcome your comments.

If you are a regular follower of this “Persuasive Packaging. Bold Brands.” blog, you will know I am big on learning from grocery. I normally talk about what fresh produce and produce marketers can learn from cereal packaging and branding, but running a close second has got to be the water category. There is some very clever brand work and on-pack messaging being done in energy water.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the water, “function: Urban Detox”, their honed-in target marketing and their very effective on-pack messages. This week, I am writing about…wait for it…“Skinny Water”.

In terms of product names, I think “Skinny Water” has got to be one of the best I’ve come across. Simply the fact that people buy bottled water called “Skinny Water” tells us something about the current food consumer. The fact that water is always ‘skinny’ (as in no calories) is obviously not the point!

There has been huge growth in the value-added water category over the last few years. As nutritional additives have been added to water, so have calories, flavours and colours. “Skinny Water” signals a return to water with (as they say on the bottle), “0 calories, 0 sugar and 0 guilt”.

Here’s what works about this product.

My favourite part of “Skinny Water” is the name. It’s just so brazen that you can’t help but love it. I would have enjoyed being an observer at that brainstorm session and seen the slow, smug smile come over their faces when they cracked the name!

Unfortunately, aside from the name, there is not much in the on-pack message that caught my eye. The words and ‘brand story’ on the bottle feels forced and isn’t compelling. Here is an excerpt – see if you agree:

“Hi-Energy, Guarana+Ginseng, +L-Carnitine, +B Vitamins. SUPER CHARGED so you can be. Acai is the high energy berry grown in the Amazon. Get the skinny and get more done with an extra energy boost when you need it most. To keep your metabolism going, Skinny Water® also has a combo of EGCG, a green tea extract, Calcium and Potassium. Eat healthy and exercise regularly, it’s good for you.  Count on this energy to breeze you through your yada-yada day and get you back to your happy place.”

Compared to Urban Detox, which was so targeted and so congruent with its message, this wording just feels flat.

On the front of the bottle, one of the label bits I do like that I think fresh produce or produce marketers could learn from is the, “0 calories, 0 sugar, 0 guilt” statement. I particularly like the “0 guilt” – which the fresh produce industry could use quite easily – especially for some of the more sensory products like mango or avocado.

Your Turn:

What do you think about Skinny Water? Love the name? Like the on-pack message copy? I welcome your thoughts.

I love meeting people on airplanes. The conversation is always diverse and interesting. On a flight to Melbourne recently, I sat next to a very engaging business woman and we had a great conversation about produce packaging. Even though I consider my packaging thinking cutting edge, I am always open to someone else’s thoughts and opinions.

Melissa and I got to talking about cereal marketing (my favourite subject!) and how cereal companies optimise every square millimetre of their packaging with targeted, “buy me” messages that appeal to segmented groups of consumers.

We compared this to the fresh produce category, where as an industry we fail to often:

1. Segment our offer to specific target markets
2. Optimise our on-pack message to appeal to the needs of our target audience

Take strawberries for example. Most strawberry punnets do not have “buy me” messaging. Typically what they do have on the punnet is the word “strawberries”, the grower or farm name and then the legal requirements like weight, PLU code, country of origin, etc.

I asked Melissa what was important to her regarding strawberries and she said, “I wish they would tell me the story about production and how they are grown.” Drilling down into this a bit further, she commented she was specifically interested in strawberries that were “spray free.” Yet she said she very seldom saw this kind of language on the pack (even on organic packs).

Her comment was a real eye opener for me, but it confirmed a core marketing premise. On-pack messages, whether for cereal or strawberries, must resonate with the buyer. There is no benefit in putting “high in Vitamin C” on a strawberry punnet if the nutrition message is not important to strawberry buyers.

As Melissa noted, “They are strawberries. I already know they are good for me. Don’t tell me that on the pack. Instead, tell me they are ‘spray free’ or ‘picked fresh daily’. This has meaning and value from my point of view and would prompt me to buy.”

Segmentation is critical for creating successful on-pack messages. The more you can breakdown a commodity fresh fruit or vegetable into multiple segments based on criteria like size, shape, variety – the more you can target those segments to specific customer needs and the more effective story you can tell on the pack.

Sometimes telling a story simply requires you to take one step back. Case in point, Melissa and I also talked about raspberries. One of the things she really liked about raspberries was that today, most punnets had the ‘long life pad’ at the bottom. “I prefer to buy those raspberries because they last longer.”

Is the pad at the bottom of the punnet a long life pad? I don’t think it is (please correct me if I am wrong), but what a great idea for a story to tell on the pack! Picture this in the corner of the raspberry punnet: “Long life pad included to extend our fresh picked goodness.”

This goes to show sometimes the best on-pack message comes from customer comments. Make sure you have a system for harnessing customer feedback and using it for on-pack message ideas.

Is your on-pack message optimised? If not, take advantage of the two ideas above to create a more customer focussed, “buy me” message.

1. Create a segmented product offer then talk specifically to each segmented group of consumers. Remember one of my favourite slogans from Gorilla Marketing, “Talk to someone and say something.”
2. Stand back and look for the obvious. Can you create a story around something you do that adds value to the product?

 Your Turn:

What stories do you tell on your packaging? How did you create the story? Send your comments and photo to lisa@freshproducemarketing.com and we will share your story in an upcoming blog.

One of most cost-effective ways to monitor food trends is to observe what packaged food companies are doing. These companies are usually big, have budgets equal to the GNP of a small African nation and they invest in research. Chances are if a packaged food company is featuring a message theme on their packaging – this is a trend you should be paying attention to.

This week, I am loving Wattie’s (New Zealand) “Pick of the Crop” labelling on their canned fruits and vegetables.

There are three things we can learn from their packaging.

1. Notice the frequency and prominence of “NZ Grown”.  A big, bold “NZ Grown” features on the can’s front label and a smaller “NZ Grown” also appears on the back. Whether for domestic or export sales, this prominence tells us how important Wattie’s believes the NZ origin of their fresh produce to be. Globally, NZ has a reputation as being a clean and green source of high quality food. By highlighting the NZ Grown origin, Wattie’s is capitalising on this reputation.

Notice though, this “NZ Grown” branding is more than simply identifying the product’s country of origin. Wattie’s recognises that as a food product, its NZ Grown origin has brand value – it can be used to create a point of difference – hence NZ Grown features prominently on the packaging.

Look at your packaging. Do you tell a country of origin story or do you produce your products in a country where origin can become a marketing story on your packaging?

2. Now, look for the statement, “Hawke’s Bay Peaches” or “Hawkes Bay Beetroot”. This regional identification is called ‘provenance’ branding. Provenance, from the French word provenir, “to come from”, means “the origin, or the source of something”. Provenance is an important and emerging food trend the fresh produce industry cannot ignore.

Wine has used geographical differentiation (called appellation) for a century, but defining foods by their geographical production region is still quite new. However, it is a trend that is gaining traction (as evidenced by Wattie’s cans) and is a packaging trend many fresh produce companies can take advantage of to cost effectively create a point of difference for their product.

Consider the National Restaurant Association’s recently released chef survey, “What’s Hot in 2011.” Among the Top 20 Trends, “farm/estate branded ingredients” placed 10^th in the trends list. Restaurants place value on identifying the source of their food…and we know consumers do to.

Over to you – think about the region where you grow your fresh fruits or vegetables. Does the region already have a reputation? If yes, how can you capitalise on it or better identify the region on your packaging?

3. Finally, with provenance or regional branding, you have to create and tell a story of the region – or your production areas uniqueness within the region. Here’s the Hawkes Bay story Wattie’s tells on their can.

“Peaches. Grown under the sun in Hawkes Bay orchards and hand picked, only the finest golden peaches are good enough to be chosen by Wattie’s.”

“Beetroot. Wattie’s beetroot has long been a Kiwi favourite, grown with pride in the rich soil of Hawke’s Bay and harvested at their tender best.”

These stories are short and simple, but they create an impression of care and quality that continues to differentiate Wattie’s Hawkes Bay peaches/beetroot from other canned peaches on the shelf. It’s a cost effective strategy for creating a point of difference.

Your Turn

Do you use provenance in your branding? Do you feel it adds value? If yes, I’d love to hear from you. Simply send me a paragraph describing how you use it and a photo…and we will try to feature it as an example on this website. Email details: Lisa@freshproducemarketing.com.

Who would have thought 20 years ago, water would become a billion dollar category? Having just returned from the USA and seen it first hand, water is big business. The category is expanding beyond the initial offering of bottled spring water to a whole new category of value added, health waters. The range and choice is now mind boggling!

In this blog, we feature and analyse the cool and clever packaging of water brand, function: Urban Detox, to see what we can learn.

function: Urban Detox

1. Great name. For young city dwellers, Urban Detox has huge resonance.

2. The green circle you can see says, “Created by Physicians.” Creates huge credibility that what is contained in the bottle is ‘physician proven’ to be good for you.

3. The back of bottle copy is clever – and again, screams ‘buy me’ to its young, hip, urban target market. See the excerpt below. Now, think of the potential of this kind of copy on a produce package.

“You are a city warrior. You jog in the smog and party on work nights. As a result of your noble escapades, you are easily run down. Function: Urban Detox helps your body naturally repair, getting you ready to go back into battle.

“Featuring a combination of prickly pear extract and the ‘smog-scrubbing super-antioxidant N-acetylcysteine, Urban Detox is designed to support healthy lungs and sinuses in the face of particulate airborne pollution. These same ingredients maximize your body’s efforts in combating hangovers.

“Play as hard as you work. Let Function: Urban Detox be your shield.”

4. There is a green body diagram on the back of the bottle with a bar chart that says, “Relative functional units.” Above this, it shows just how much ‘benefit’ the two additives are delivering to your body’s Lungs/Sinuses, Liver and Head. If you don’t think too hard about it, this section supports the fact the drink has got to be good for you. It sounds scientific, although I personally have no idea what a “Relative functional unit” is.

5. The final interesting part of the bottle is the very tiny words at the very bottom of the label that state, “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” Apparently, this is how you make a health claim without actually making a health claim.

What’s in the ingredients you ask? Surely, to be this good, it must contain something pretty fantastic, yeah? Here are the ingredients: Water, Cane Sugar, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor (natural fruit extracts), Purple Carrot Juice Concentrate (color), Purple Sweet Potato Juice (color). Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Prickly Pear Extract, Pyridoxine Hydrocholoride (Vit B6), Magnesium Oxide, Calcium Phosphate, Gum Arabic, Niacinamide (Vit B3), Ester Gum, Folic Acid and Cyanocobalamin (Vit B12).

If this doesn’t proven the power of marketing…nothing does. Basically, this product appears to be just water, sugar, flavours and some colour.

As cynical as I might be, the goal of this blog is to learn from the best. In that regard, function: Urban Detox is a great example of:

1. Knowing your product’s specific nutritional attributes and linking it to a specific, desirable benefit that has cut through with your targeted buyer.

* Fresh produce can learn from this example because we tend to state a generic health benefit (e.g. high in Vitamin C) and not link it to a specific, beneficial outcome for the consumer.

2. There is power in knowing and understanding the needs and motivations of your target market. This enables you to speak to them…to reach out and say the things they want to hear.

* In fresh produce, we have survived by being mass marketers, not niche marketers. Macro consumer trends all point to consumers wanting more customised products. If we don’t conform to this customisation trend, we run the risk of losing consumers who want health products that better target their unique needs.

Remember – your ‘on-pack message’ is a minature marketing billboard. It’s seen by thousands of shoppers each week. If you are not optimising your on-pack message, you are not getting maximum value from your packaging spend and you are missing out on sales. We help fresh produce growers and retailers transform the ‘brand message’ on their packaging from being plain and perfunctory to being a powerful marketing tool that drives sales, captures attention and builds stronger relationships with customers.

function: Urban Detox water 1

‘Relative functional units’ diagram

I love grocery stores. It’s a sick addiction, I admit, but as a fresh produce marketer, I find the branding and packaging of grocery products so interesting.

In fresh produce, our branding and on-pack message has often been limited to a PLU sticker smaller than a postage stamp. Makes it tough to be creative with a brand or message when there is no room!

Hence why I envy packaged foods. Packaged food manufacturers treat every square speck of their package as a billboard to convey powerful “buy me” messages to shoppers. On a crowded shelf, these messages are often the difference between sale vs no sale. It is hugely competitive…and there is so much the fresh produce industry can learn from their strategies, brands and on-pack messages.

This blog is about showcasing packaged foods, analysing (and admiring!) their branding, packaging and on-pack message, then relating this analysis to the fresh produce industry.

Why is understanding packaged food branding and packaging strategy important for the fresh produce industry? Because these companies compete, aggressively, for a share of the shopper’s stomach. In Western countries, shoppers are not going to eat more. The Western stomach is already full. We can only grow fresh produce consumption by getting them to choose different foods to put in their basket.

This is a huge challenge, complicated further by the fact packaged food companies do a much better job of branding and selling their products to consumers via their packaging. This, in its essence, is what this blog is all about.

I will showcase the best packaged food brands, show you their packaging, highlight the on-pack messages they are using to drive sales then help you create the same compelling message on your product’s packs.

More effective packaging and on-pack messaging is the future for the fresh produce industry…let’s learn from the best together.

PS: Seen a great packaged food product that you want to see featured in this blog? Simply snap a picture or two, email it to me (lisa@freshproducemarketing.com) with a note telling me why it caught your attention and I will try to feature it in this blog.

Here’s to more effective fresh produce packaging.