By Fresh Produce Marketing founder Lisa Cork

Apologies for the recent hiatus in the Packaging Pitch column. I have been deeply involved in some new, world-first fresh produce products and they have consumed the last four months of my life. I look forward to sharing their stories after the brands’ launches. It has been textbook brand strategy…and very exciting work.

In creating the product strategy and brand strategy for the new products I have been involved with, I have been reviewing and analyzing what I call ‘integrity branding,’ so I wanted to write about it this month.

Consumers are in the midst of a food revolution. I know this doesn’t come as a surprise for many of you, but I am fascinated by how it’s manifesting when it comes to brand strategy and brand creation. There is a new emerging category of foods being made with ingredient integrity, nutritional integrity and social integrity.

This goes beyond Fair Trade and is more like a Venn diagram where ingredient, nutritional and social integrity in food intersect. The category is small but growing significantly if shelf space allocation is anything to go by.

I was recently in the USA and the mecca for ‘ahead of the curve’ food trends in my book is Whole Foods. I literally spend hours wandering every aisle and absorbing what the brand and on-pack communication is telling me.

In the dairy section, I got talking with the Dairy Manager when I commented how empty the coconut, almond, cashew, soy and hemp milk display was versus the cow’s milk display. His comment? Plant-based milks are now selling two times the volume of dairy-based milks. Granted, this is in a store just north of San Francisco – but still, two times the volume versus dairy is a huge difference and it speaks to a shift in dairy consumption and the swing towards ingredient and nutritional integrity. It also speaks to social integrity.  

On pack communication on a hemp milk carton talks about the health benefits AND the environmental benefits of plant-based milk versus cow’s milk. Coconut milk is now nearly mainstream as are nut milks like almond. There is even a coconut creamer for coffee – which actually tastes amazing – and shows just how mainstream these plant-based milks have become in the past few years.

Move over a few feet and there is a whole emerging range of fermented foods. Gut health is in and big business. If you skim read the bloggers and health writers, we have not yet begun to understand how much gut health impacts overall health and well-being.

One catalyst for improved gut health is fermented foods – and once where there was nothing but a very foreign looking bottle of Korean kimchi, now there are very trendy looking bottles of Korean kimchi and very hip fermented food brands like ‘Wildbrine'.

Wild Brine is a great example of the new generation of food companies participating in the ingredient, nutritional and social integrity. Visit their website and read their story. They started from a social cause and had an idea to raise funds. This is now a thriving business on the cutting edge of dietary trends; it is a food product with ingredient and nutritional integrity and also has a strong sense of social integrity.

Move on in Whole Foods to the juice chiller and prepare to be daunted. Cold pressed is now ‘hot’ with companies like Suja Juice taking the USA by storm in a very short period of time. The reason for Suja’s success – nutritional integrity and ingredient integrity.

The ‘what’s in the bottle is what is in the bottle’ is becoming a big deal for consumers. There is a sense consumers are over being over-marketed to. There is a huge lack of integrity in food labeling and some of these fast-growing and emerging foods are growing because they bring integrity to food and food ingredients.

In packaged foods, there is also a movement towards nutritional, ingredient and social integrity. Look at all of the certifications this pack of granola bars now uses on pack.

- Organic
- GMO Free
- Allergen Free
- Gluten Free
- And for some reason, is also a serving of vegetables!

Even the name 'Made Good' is designed to evoke a certain sense of feeling good when purchasing.

People often ask me if a brand or on-pack communication “is really that important in fresh produce". All I can say is…absolutely. A brand represents not only a name, but a robust thought process to find what makes you and your products unique in the world. Going through a process like my brand strategy process helps you find your niche and story…and then this is what we bring to life in your business and on your packaging.

All of the products I have spoken about in this column share one thing in common – they have a story – and that story gets brought to life in their brand.

Fresh produce growers should be riding the wave of nutritional, ingredient and social integrity. But to do so, you’ve got to think different. I would love to help – drop me an email (Lisa@lisacork.com) to discuss.

www.freshfruitportal.com