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| Editor’s Stuff: Very sweet! Wedgewood Nougat finds unforeseen market! |
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Here are my two stories of the week: one of a small SA confectionery player taking clever advantage of a new market; and the other, a fascinating enterprise that holds the seemingly realistic promise of solving the world’s food problems. Can it be true?
Wedgewood Nougat, crafted in the verdant hills of the KZN Midlands, is a taste treat beloved of many fans here and abroad. Now, in a brilliant twist of marketing, the company has reinvented its confectionery as an energy food for athletes. Introducing Wedgewood Race Food.
 Philipp Saumweber is creating a miracle in the barren Australian outback. He appears to have pulled off the ultimate something-from-nothing agricultural feat – using the sun to desalinate seawater for irrigation and to heat and cool greenhouses as required, and thence cheaply grow high-quality, pesticide-free vegetables year-round in commercial quantities.
Enjoy this week’s newsletter!
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| Local News and Developments |
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There’s a treat in store for parents looking for something special yet affordable to put in their children’s lunch boxes: new DairyBelle yoghurts in spouted stand-up pouches.
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South Africa on a world stage at SIAL Economic gloom was hard to detect in the packed aisles of the eight massive exhibition halls of SIAL Paris in October. For five whole days, SIAL made Paris the capital of the food planet where food manufacturers of the world met to share ideas and do business. Despite the mainstream market challenges, the 2012 show highlighted the resilience and dynamism of the agri-food industry on a global scale.
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Simba is re-launching the iconic potato chip brand with a new look and feel to drive additional interest in the snack aisle. The re-launch is focused on refreshing the range of fun and flavourful potato chips to address consumer needs while boosting brand exposure in retail outlets.
The first Fairtrade-certified Cadbury Dairy Milk slabs appeared on local supermarket shelves in November 2011. One year on, Kraft Foods is celebrating the sale of 29.4 million slabs, which have generated a premium of US$238 000 (just under R2.1 million) for small-scale farmers and producers in West Africa.
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An interveiw with Christelle Reade-Jahn, a professional marketing strategist and director of the organisation.
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In a first for African retail, the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA) and Woolworths have announced a broad-based, multifaceted partnership to drive greater sustainability through selected Woolworths products and operations.
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International News & Developments
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The EU’s food safety agency has definitively rejected a bombshell French report linking genetically modified corn to cancer, saying it failed to meet “acceptable scientific standards”.
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Nestlé eyes big food industry opportunities in Africa Nestlé has identified Africa as one of the biggest areas of opportunity for the food industry in the next ten to twenty years – both within the continent and for European food makers, according to Dr Serigne Diop, director of Nestlé’s R&D centre in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
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The Global Trends Report is a highly-regarded annual look at what’s driving the world at large, socially, economically, politically. For 2013, its authors say the great global redistribution of economic and social power will continue, away from traditional institutions and towards communities and individuals, and also to businesses whose leaders understand and act on the big trends shaping our future.
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On November 14 Starbucks made it largest acquisition yet, buying Teavana, an Atlanta-based tea retailer, for $620m. This is not the firm’s first foray into the tea market — its stores sell tea, of course, and it bought Tazo, a tea manufacturer and distributor, back in 1999 — but it is by far its boldest. Is this putting Starbucks on the road to do for tea what it did for coffee?
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Gone, by popular demand: Denmark’s fat tax. ‘The fat tax is one of the most maligned we [have] had in a long time’, said Mette Gjerskov, the Danish food and agriculture minister, announcing the decision to ditch the policy. ‘Now we have to try improving the public health by other means.’
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The single-largest business opportunity in Africa will be its rising consumer market. A McKinsey report (free), one of the first of its kind, offers a detailed profile of African consumers, including their demographics, behaviour and needs.
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Home carbonation beverage system maker, SodaStream International, is taking on “Big Soda” and looking to steal market share from the soft drink giants with the launch of its first global TV campaign and some posturing from its CEO (see Food Bites below).
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Food Trends and Marketing
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2013 will be the perfect storm of necessity and opportunity, says Trendwatching.com in this free trend briefing: some economies will do OK(-ish), others will be shaky, but whatever market or industry you’re in, those who understand and cater to changing consumer needs, desires and expectations will forever have plenty of opportunity to profit.
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Mondelez International-owned Cadbury has filed a patent for a chocolate that can tolerate hot climates by re-refining the chocolate after the conching step. Patent applicant, Cadbury UK, says that the development presents huge opportunities for the chocolate, biscuit and snacks industries.
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UK: Tango shower gels set to hit shelves In an unlikely example of cross-branding, Tango, the Britvic-owned soft drink, has moved into the FMCG sector with the launch of a branded shower range, which will hit shelves in January next year.
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Today’s chefs are going beyond carrot cake, zucchini bread, and sweet potato pie when it comes to making desserts with vegetables. In the November issue of Food Technology magazine, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), an in-depth article looks at the way dessert is evolving from the traditional to the unexpected.
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Fast, fresh, flavourful… If we are what we eat, then American and Westerners in general are more complex than ever, and marketers are quickly adapting to the new demands of a rapidly changing food world.
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Food Science, Technology and Ingredients Stuff
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Microbes love to eat our nastiest by-products, like fat, oil, and grease. Instead of using caustic chemicals to clean up messes, why not just employ nature’s garbage men?
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While lauding their efficiency, public health officials in the US are bemoaning the fact that new diagnostic tests inadvertently undercut surveillance and traceability of outbreaks of food poisoning back to their source.
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The latest effort to decipher the unique aroma signature of the durian — revered as the “king of fruits” in southeast Asia but reviled elsewhere as the world’s foulest smelling food — has uncovered several new substances that contribute to the fragrance.
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P&G sachets provide clean water for pennies Procter & Gamble has pioneered sachets that purify 10 liters of water in 20 minutes, at a cost of three and a half US cents per packet. The company is working with humanitarian groups to deliver the sachets to communities where poor water quality is linked to illness and death.
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Health and Nutrition Stuff
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Veggies are wonderful food and we all want to eat more of them…. now new research from Cornell University has explored the impact that adding a vegetable to the plate has on perceptions of both the meal and the person who prepared it. It’s a loving feeling!
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Looking forward: The emerging evidence for vitamins and health In the last 100 years vitamins have been found to play vital roles in our health and wellbeing, but the full benefits of many vitamins is yet to be elucidated. This article looks at some of the areas of vitamin research that are showing promise for the future. |
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Grapefruit poses a potentially lethal health risk to increasing numbers of patients taking prescription drugs, experts have warned. The fruit contains chemicals that can interact with certain drugs, making them more potent. Adverse effects can include acute kidney failure, respiratory failure, internal bleeding and sudden death.
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Recently energy drinks, such as 5-hour Energy and Monster Energy, have come under fire in the US after the FDA received 13 and five reports of deaths possibly linked to these drinks respectively. This has raised concerns about the safety of the beverages. How could the energy drinks, whose key ingredient is caffeine, be connected to the deaths?
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Weird, Whacky and Wonderful Stuff
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Usually you buy foods because you want what’s inside, but when that food comes to these creative food packaging concepts, you would probably buy them for the packages themselves. These packaging concepts rethink the way food can be presented, making it more attractive and usable.
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Food bites…2012: Ideas are the energy source that fuels corporate success
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 “As we cruise towards 2013, one thing is clear: the game has not changed. It is still about ideas. Hell’s bells, man, it’s always been about ideas.
The old argument is that the development and marketing of new product concepts is all about filling consumer needs. But history has shown that some of the best new product ideas ‘created’ a need no one even knew existed. Did we really need the upside-down ketchup bottle? Nope. But for a while, it became a very trendy new concept…
But not every new idea has to be first in a category, sometimes it’s the message (and a lot of advertising and pricing shenanigans) that carry the day. When it’s all said and done, no food company can survive that isn’t actively pursuing such new and innovative ways to capture consumer hearts, minds and dollars.
You either keep the idea-generating momentum flowing within the corporate walls or you risk future irrelevancy. Keep in mind, people still have to eat. They still have to walk the aisles (or via e-commerce) and make their purchasing decisions. There are no vacations for creative thinking in our industry.”
Bob Messenger, US food industry guru and editor, The Morning Cup
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Wedgewood takes nougat from confectionery to energy food
