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January 25, 2011

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Marketing

Bord Bia Small Business Seminar – Marketing Supports for Irish SMEs

Given by Eileen Bentley of Bord Bia

Vantage

this is the Bord Bia marketing service.

  • Vantage Point – website with resources and discussions – www.bordbiavantage.ie
  • Vantage Partner – a 12 month business development program
  • Vantage Promote – consumer research

2011 Outlook

Overall the SME food sector is positive on the outlook. Biggest challenges from the sector:

  • Avoiding margin pressure from retailers
  • Meeting changing consumer needs
  • Reducing production and distribution costs
  • Investing in new brands

Cost Reduction

The Vantage Partner programme works with client companies over 12 months to develop a vision for the business (working with experts) and outputs include both business and marketing plans which are operationally usable and realistic and have been tested against the market.

Distribution challenges

Vantage Distribution Clinics 2011. These work as follows:

Initial meeting with Bord Bia and a distribution expert. This leads to BB and the expert developing a distribution plan for you. First of these clinics happens in April 2011.

New Product Development

Assistance with this time consuming area.

Access to latest Market Research – both general and sector specific

(as an aside I have used the Bord Bia research a couple of times and it is a really strong resource. However the Bord Bia website(s) are antiquated – their content management is lousy. Just so you know – find a real person in there and speak to them)

Foresight4food

access to low cost consumer innovation. This involves your new food product samples being presented to consumer panels with structured feedback. Apparently client feedback on this service is really strong.

Brand Expertise – Brand Forum

By joining this producers get access to 4 workshops a year, share peer knowledge with each other, 5 bigger events and access to mentoring in a variety of brand related marketing areas.

Eileen mentioned a couple of things to finish off:

  • The overseas offices and direct access to marketing graduates in a new programme to be launched in the next month or two who will be available to assist client companies with new brands/projects in those marketplaces.
  • 7th February 2012 was given as a date for the next MarketPlace event – bring Irish suppliers together with National buyers from retailers.
  • There is a pilot project in the South East – a roadshow which will showcase local producers for local procurers – making trade buyers aware of the suppliers around them – did not get much more detail that than.

Marketing Assistance Grants 2011

CLOSING DATE 28th FEB 2011. 60% of marketing spend for branding, quality standards, trade shows – whatever . For companies with turnover between 100k and 3.5M

Keith

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January 25, 2011

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Bord Bia Small Business Seminar – Jonathan Ryan, Kantar

“Jonathan Ryan will present on how consumer purchasing behaviour has changed in 2010 and how companies can work smarter in 2011 to maximise opportunities in Ireland and the UK” Their website here. They work by assembling information based on analysis of actual consumer behaviour – tracking shopping baskets.

His talk is entitled “The Shopper Landscape”

1. What is influencing consumers

Started with the trend of saving cash – consumers trading down in certain food brand and related to that shopping more in the discounters. Overall the spend on food is 6.4% down.

Recession busting categories:

Home baking and anything relating to consumption at home, lunchboxes snacks and meals, budget and convenience also there (no surprises so!)

2. Retail Landscape

Jonathan presented a series of store report cards – too much detail to capture here. I will put up slides/link to slides if they are available afterwards.

3. How do I grow my brand

There is only one long term way to grow your brand. Develop loyal customers and increase the average  life time value. Interestingly he does not rate Loyalty Marketing as a sustainable way of achieving this.

So how do you get more trade buyers and increase the value of their purchases from you. He focused on New Product Development (NPD) as the key way of doing this – constantly innovating.

Keith

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January 25, 2011

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Marketing

Bord Bia Small Business Seminar – Willie Wixted, ABC Nutrition

I am here at a Bord Bia seminar for food producers and will be blogging from it for the next couple of hours.

Willie’s business (their website here – needs a rework!) started in 2007 with a team of four and they currently employ 10. 4 of those are food technologists. They manufacture sports nutrition products. and had 50% sales growth in 2010 – driven by export sales (73% of turnover). They export to 12 different countries.

How did they grow their business?

In Spain they work with someone they initially met at a trade show and then spent 1.5 years sending him samples. Now he is one of their biggest customers. For Greece he scoured forums (using google translate) and identified targets that way.
Italy happened via a cold call from someone who visited their website. Which was terrible at the time. The Italian found them listed as exhibitors at a relevant trade show and this happened with another customer as well.

Sweden happened differently – they met a consultant who had done a report on the market there who discounted their chances in a saturated and competitive market.
They got into it via a Swedish company who were used as a trade reference by a prospective Chinese supplier. They chased them down like a dog with a bone. (this guy is incredibly tenacious, really impressive!).

Had great words for both Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland because of their local knowledge in overseas markets. He also mentioned the importance of showcasing – working with leading names in whatever sector you are in. On a related theme if you win an award put it on your packaging – use stickers if you have too until you can get the packaging redesigned.

Suppliers and Team

75% of their ingredients are dairy based – purchasing from suppliers like Carbery in Cork. He used this to illustrate how a successful food business leads to significant employment downstream (as opposed to software for example). Was full of praise for the quality of Irish dairy products – the grass based system we have gives us an edge over most other countries. A lot of countries do not have access to the raw materials and they are an ambient export so easy to ship.

He spoke a little about their team and the ongoing investment in their qualifications and scientific knowledge. They assists them with their ongoing R&D – investigating the stress on sportsmen and women across different sports.

Generating Leads

Attending trade shows – both the ones in Ireland for incoming buyers which are run by Bord Bia and also Trade Shows in other countries. On the internet get your site up and then ensure you are listed in those trade show websites – they lead to very targeted traffic. A great fan of working late in the night on the web – people are up still and on forums etc.

Keith

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January 22, 2011

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Marketing, Media Watch, Packaging

Artisan and Local Food Brands – Irish Media Watch No.2

Irish Times – Saturday 22nd January – Article here

In an article entitled Tipple that won’t make you tipsy Tipperary brand The Apple Farm are mentioned. The journalist John Wilson says “It is cloudy, lightly sparkling with lovely, pure apple fruit flavour.”

Irish Times – Thursday 20th January – Article here

This is a great piece about Cork based Taste A Memory

On the back of the IBEC survey which showed that Irish food companies are more positive about their prospects than Irish business overall the piece shows how a focus on design and packaging by this brand had a positive impact on their listings and sales.

Ann Bradfield, the chef behind Taste A Memory, also recommends a spend on in-store tastings to boost awareness and sales.

and in other somewhat relevant news

“59% of Americans want better online access to Irish Food”

A commercial opportunity awaits – see Slide 31 in this post here from Amarach.

“Street food vendors are expected to populate sidewalks every two to three blocks downtown by the summer of 2014”

This decision in Vancouver will open up opportunities for local food suppliers with staff in the council screening applicants for, amongst other things, the use of local, organic and fair trade foods. Full article here.

“Green & Black’s ‘to seek split from Kraft'”
This brand does not belong in the arms of a global conglomerate. Would be good to see it independent again. Examiner article here

Keith

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January 22, 2011

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Media Watch

Leader Partnership Co’s to cease funding on-farm food businesses?

Have just come across this in the Independent on Tuesday last (18th January). I am covering it here because Leader Partnership’s around the country are the single most effective source of State financial assistance for capital intensive on-farm food enterprises.

From the Indo:

“The shock announcement by the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs last week means that no further assessments or approvals are allowed for on-farm food projects for the foreseeable future……..

The communication from the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs states that the clampdown on grants applies only to “projects involving a farmer/member of a farm family which in any way involves food preparation, production or processing”.

The communication stated that this included projects relating to meat, vegetables, cheese, ice-cream and crisps.”

This is just stupid and I have to assume that the Department will be able to take actions to reverse it.

Keith

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January 22, 2011

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Marketing

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Artisan brand producer blogs

Food production is a very, very time consuming business – one of the most intense ways of passing your life away. So it is not a surprise that blogging (which also consumes copious amounts of time) is not practiced by too many of them in Ireland.

These are the ones which I am aware of – if you know of any others please let me know 🙂

Ireland

http://secretrecipecompany.com – entrepreneur seeks recipe owners seeking painless route to market.

http://seymoursofcork.blogspot.com – We share with you our updates on life at our bakery and in West Cork, Ireland.

http://icecreamireland.com – I am a chocoholic Irish ice cream man, born in New York City, and now living in Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

http://www.cullyandsully.com/blog – Cully & Sully love to cook, especially to impress! Throw a dinner party next weekend and cook something seriously impressive

http://blog.glenilen.com – Alan’s family has been tending the same small dairy farm for generations.

UPDATE:

http://www.kinvarasmokedsalmon.com/blog – Our family has been creating mouth watering recipes using our Organic Irish Smoked Salmon for years. Here are some of our favourites!

I will be keeping track of this list on a separate page here.

Keith

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January 22, 2011

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Packaging

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The role of design in artisan food packaging

Thanks to Kristin (whose blog is dinnerdujour) for the hat tip which lead to this post.

Written by Alexandra Lange on the design blog DesignObserver.com the full post entitled What Should Food Look Like poses a series of questions around the percieved norm in packaging design for food products which are artisan/ local/ healthy/ organic/ different in some way.

Using a range of examples Alexandra suggests:

If we want to cross class lines, and get everyone to eat better, wouldn’t it make sense to come up with packaging that was neither tacky nor classy? We need a new identity for plain, simple, grandmother-would-recognize food? Not patronizing, not upscaling. Middlebrow chips? Neutral beverages? We need supermarket aisles stocked with food, not messages about our income level.

Which is an interesting question. And to be honest for me is completely irrelevant for most of the food producers I write about. While passion for a society which eats better and which respects food which is produced properly (however defined) is core to every artisan producer I would suggest it cannot override the need to develop a brand (logo, name, packaging materials, fonts, colours, photography) that allows for clear and immediate positioning on the shelf edge.

Yet maybe there is something in the proposition to think about. A shift down a gear or two with a less pronounced high-brow brand and a more accessible visual impact could produce higher volume sales.

What do you think? For me it is a brand by brand decision and cannot be accommodated in a sweeping discussion which belongs at government or lobby group level.

Keith

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January 17, 2011

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Packaging

2 packaging and design posts this week from Irish artisan brands

These do not happen too often – it is difficult enough finding time to run a food business without finding the time to blog about it.

Seymours is a handmade biscuit brand in Cork and they were full of praise on Thursday last week for Michelle Jones of Microstreet Graphic Design for her work in developing the packaging.

There are no contact details for Michelle that I can find online – however her husband has a website here.

Meanwhile in Limerick Lorraine from italianfoodies continues to share the development of a new food brand by herself and her husband. They currently run La Cucina and the brand will initially be for a range of sauces. She had this to say about the process:

We’re currently at the branding stage which is a very detailed process, I presumed you hired a graphic designer, they design a logo and there you go!! Ah no sireeee!! The brand has to represent what we stand for – family, culture, Italian lifestyle, passion, natural, local,  good quality etc etc and it is pretty difficult to get all this into a couple of words and a graphic, we are on the way though and get closer every meeting we have with the designers but it is all I have been thinking about for the last couple of weeks, we’re off to London soon to see if we can get any inspiration over there, they market artisan food very well in the UK and I think Ireland should look to them on how it is done….


This stuff is difficult and important to get right. I cannot wait to see what they come up with.

Keith

 

 

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January 16, 2011

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Great brands and producers

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Sources of artisan food brand news

I am slowly building up a list of food blogs on the internet which cover artisan and local food brands. Here are some of those – if you have any suggestions would be great to get them from you.

http://nuttyfig.com/ – the blog of Susie Wyshak who offers marketing services to artisan food producers in California

http://www.corkbilly.com/ – Billy Lyons enjoys good local food and shares his finds here

http://somesaycocoa.wordpress.com/ – Gillian O’Leary comments on chocolate. And not Dairy Milk

UPDATE:

http://foodcurated.com/ – one of the best video blogs around and right on topic for me

http://caveagedblog.wordpress.com – An exploration of everything there is to know about cheese

http://www.cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com – All Cupcakes, all the time!

It’s a short list, hoping to make it longer 🙂

Keith

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January 15, 2011

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video interviews

Minh Tsai and the Good Bean

A recent video interviews from Liza de Guia – this time of a tofu advocate called Minh Tsai who founded Hodo Soy Beanery (Hoda means good bean) in California.

Turns out tofu is not meant to be flacid and tasteless – this is a well shot and edited piece which captures the passion behind the brand and educates viewers on how tofu should be made. You can see the full post from Liza here.

Keith