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FUTURE TRENDS IN TOMATO PACKAGING: CREATING NEW MARKETS FOR A HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.

Like it or not, fresh produce in Australia is sold into a developed market. Our consumers know what they want, and how

they want it. Consumption of produce in Australia is relatively high, but growth in any one sector comes from the

decline in sales of competing produce lines. In Australia, we are often told that the future growth of truss tomatoes will

come from a decline in field tomato consumption. But is marketing into this developed market, a sustainable model for

the future?

R ecently, I received an inspirational “shot in the arm”

when I attended the Produce Marketing Association

2012 Fresh Summit. Swamped with a plethora of new

and innovative products, I was blown away by the ex-

ceptional creativity of the North American tomato producers. Driv-

en by a critical oversupply earlier in the year, American producers

knew that now was the time to stop resting on their laurels and to

create new markets.

As it stood, driving increased demand in their existing markets was

becoming ineffective. "It's hard to sell more produce, to people

who are already buying your produce. We really had to look at who

was buying our produce and why they were buying it... The con-

sumption patterns of Americans is changing rapidly and we need to

change with it" said an Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Grower. It

was clear that this years’ oversupply had resulted in a much need-

ed wake-up call for the industry, resulting in a quantum shift in the

goals of the North American producers. No longer were producers

focused only on producing the largest quantity of produce for the

lowest possible price. Now, producers were focused on increasing

consumption into markets that yielded a higher return. In order to

meet this goal producers realised they needed to create new mar-

kets.

Defining A New Market?

After assessing the existing market conditions, producers under-

stood that their major source of competition was not coming from

competing produce lines such as field tomatoes. Instead, growth of

the product was constrained by the existing market of processed

alternatives. For the consumer, cooking pasta or preparing salsa

with fresh tomatoes seemed impractical and unaffordable. For

mothers, choosing between "quick and easy" and "the right thing

to do" often resulted in kids going to school with highly processed

confectionery snacks. After a little market research a list of key

objectives began to appear for many producers. In order to create

new markets it was clear that the consumer’s perception of cook-

ing and snacking on fresh produce needed to change from:

Impractical to practical

Unaffordable to affordable

And from, inconvenient to convenient.

For marketers, this was always going to be a difficult task. "It's easy

to create awareness about new products with consumers, but it's

much harder to change behaviour" said Bryan Silbermann

PMA President & CEO. The research clearly shows that consumers

know they should and want to eating more fresh produce. To meet

these objectives marketers need to determine who their consum-

ers are and develop strategies that give these potential consumers

a new reason to purchase their product.

From the existing market research the two biggest untapped

growth areas in the market is the “health conscious parents" and

the "home chef" looking for that healthy alternative to the junk

food that their kids so desperately crave.

Loose truss tomatoes ready to hit the market.

By Benjamin Smider

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Marketing To A New Generation of Health Conscious Parents

Winning over the health conscious parents was always going to be

a big task. Children these days are very picky about what they

want.. They are inherently brand loyal and are easily influenced by

superficial features. The established junk food and confectionery

lines know this and target the childhood snack market very effec-

tively. As a result kids currently perceive fresh produce to be un-

cool and old-fashioned. In order to counteract these perceptions

North American marketers chose three very effective strategies.

By reducing the portion size of pre-packed cherry tomatoes and

incorporating attractive yet superficial marketing material, market-

ers were able to get cherry tomatoes "a seat at the cool kids table".

Larger packages containing small pre-packed portions made pack-

ing children's lunchboxes more practical and convenient for the

health conscious parent. Despite the increased quantity of cherry

tomatoes purchased, consumers felt that they were getting more

value for their money as a higher quantity of smaller individual

portions seemed to go further. One company that clearly adopted

these strategies were Mucci Farms. Releasing their new Veggies-To

-Go line at this year’s Fresh Summit the Macci’s team realised that

the childhood snack market offers exciting potential over the com-

ing years. “We have presented the Veggies-To-Go on line to chil-

dren in our local elementary and grade schools, so far the “red

candy” (cherry tomatoes) has been quite well received ” “Most

[school aged consumers] like the kid friendly aspects, like the easy

to open packaging, the inclusion of temporary tattoos and colour-

ful graphics” Joe Spano, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for

Mucci farms.

Now that marketers have created a new strategy that not only

targets a new demographic of consumers, it also increases con-

sumption in a previously untapped demographic.. It is now up to

retailers to implement action plans that will help this new product

line to grow. Such strategies could include promoting the new line

by incorporating the snack packs into the impulse buy section of

supermarket chains or getting large fast food giants to incorporate

these small pre-packaged portions of produce into their children's

menus.

Veggies-to-go by Macci Farms, new snacking line debuting at this years Fresh Summit.

Strategy 1. Choose small, colourful and sweet

produce lines, such as cherry tomatoes.

Strategy 2. Decrease the individual portion size of

pre-packaged produce.

Strategy 3. Incorporate into the packaging,

colourful mainstream cartoon characters that kids

can easily identify.

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Marketing to the “everyday home chef”

In targeting the “home chef" North American marketers creatively

attempted to redesign the perceptions of their product through

innovative new packaging strategies. The ready to cook market in

America, much like Australia, is growing at a rapid rate. Despite

making the use of fresh produce seem more convenient the ready

to cook market also gives the consumer an idea of the products

alternative uses. With this understanding, North American market-

ers incorporated these elements into their new packaging strate-

gies.

When not presented with the full suite of competing products con-

sumers decisions are biased. A great example of this would be the

taco section of your local supermarket. When buying the ingredi-

ents for tacos consumers often overlook fresh tomatoes as an in-

gredient instead choosing the pre-made salsa sauce on display next

to the taco shells. For this reason it is important to get fresh toma-

toes out of the produce section and into the aisles where they can

be seen as an alternative to the processed goods. Unfortunately,

current display methods of truss tomatoes make it hard for mar-

keters to display their product outside of produce section. For this

reason, North American marketers are experimenting with new

packaging techniques that can be conveniently and temporarily

hung next to competing products in the supermarket aisles. New

packaging materials that are being considered include netting and

stronger flow wrapped cartons that can be hung next to shelves.

Having the fresh product available as a choice next to the pro-

cessed alternative is only the first step. it must be blatantly clear to

consumers that the fresh product on display is a more convenient,

cost-effective and healthier alternative to its processed counter-

part. Cleverly, North American marketers created this image by

including recipes and ready to cook sachets of instant seasoning.

Debuting at this year’s Fresh Summit was Euro Fresh’s new Cam-

pari Sonoran Salsa Kits. Pairing a 400 gram serving of cocktail to-

matoes with a custom salsa packet, this new product conveniently

creates a serve of preservative and additive free salsa. According to

Euro Fresh “Salsa has surpassed ketchup in the condiment category

and our new kit gives customers a way to make great tasting, fresh

salsa that you can’t get out of the jar”. Netted trusses, great for hanging in supermarket aisle by Millennium Pacific located in British

Columbia, Canada.

Strategy 1. Redesign prepacks so that the

product becomes more versatile and can be

displayed outside of the produce section and is

next to competing products.

Strategy 2. Determine the processed

alternatives in the ready to cook market and

create competing product lines.

New ready to cook pre-packs debuting at this years Fresh Summit; Top: Bruschetta mix by

Mastronardi produce located in Ontario, Canada. Middle: Campari Sonoran Salsa Kit by

Eurofresh located in Arizona, USA Bottom: Fried Green Tomato Kit, Nature Fresh located in

Ontario, Canada

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Creating New Markets In Australia

Maintaining growth in the developed market is always going

to be hard. Too often in Australia we see a focus on new

products targeting the same developed market. The sheer

variety of cherry tomatoes, cherry truss, truss, coloured and

no mess tomatoes on offer in mainstream Australian super-

markets is phenomenal. Each product maintains that it is

more tasty and /or more healthy than the competition.

While it is great to see a focus on taste and functionality, it is

disappointing to see such a large variety of different prod-

ucts, competing to capture the same consumer. As the Aus-

tralian greenhouse sector develops, it will become harder to

market more product to this same consumer. If we can learn

anything from the recent oversupply into the North Ameri-

can market, now is the time to start thinking about new

markets. Targeting new consumers now may seem difficult,

but the children of the health conscious parent market are

going to be your market of the future. Educating this new

generation of consumers, by feeding them tasty, high-

quality vegetables from a young age, it is much more likely

to increase fresh produce consumption into the future.

Moving forward Australian marketers need to creatively use

the qualitative attributes of their products to capture new

markets, leveraging the brand equity of a product that is at

risk of becoming a commodity. By creating new markets,

Australian producers are helping to drive this sector towards

a healthier and sustainable future.

References

OnResearch (2012). Primary Shoppers/Moms with Kids 10 & under,

On behalf of Produce for Better Health Foundation.

About the author

Benjamin Smider is a University of Sydney student who attended

PMA Fresh Summit 2012, as a PMA Pack Family Scholar. He has just

recently completed his masters thesis in the field of intensive green-

house horticulture.

For more details: bsmi4427@uni.sydney.edu.au

Overwhelming choice on display in Australian supermarkets.