Brands Test Sampling at Meal Assembly Kitchens

A new venue for sampling is being tested by the likes of Juicy Juice, Tabasco, General Mills and Martha Stewart: meal assembly kitchens.

There are 1,002 of these kitchens across the country where moms, singles and groups of girlfriends come to prepare fresh meals at stations replete with fresh meats, fish, sauces, spices and vegetables. They make the meals chosen from a variety of monthly recipes for one or multiple days, then take the meals home to cook that evening or freeze for a later date.

Some chain kitchens, like Dream Dinners, which has 179 locations, host their own programs. A new entity, the Meal Assembly Network, a promotions agency, is working to roll many of the fragmented kitchen businesses together into one channel for marketers to reach a coveted demographic: women 25 to 54, single- or dual-income households with children, and average household incomes of $55,000 to $75,000.

The network, founded by Andy Potter, a former vice president at promotion agency Promote It International, offers three types of programs: recipe sponsorship, sampling or both.

One of his clients, Tabasco, ran both in 100 kitchens last February, including Dinner by Design, a 56-kitchen chain based in Chicago.

Under the recipe sponsorship, Tabasco created a suggested recipe that incorporated its Chipotle Pepper Sauce, Raspberry Chipotle Chicken, to be promoted as one of the monthly dishes customers could make while in the kitchens. In the sampling component, customers who put that recipe together used the product as an ingredient to make the dish. All customers, including those who ordered meals to be picked up or delivered, received 1/2-ounce samples, a Chipotle Lover’s Guide of recipes, and coupons for 60-cents off the product. The promotion was played on several of the kitchen’s Web sites.

Some kitchens preferred to create their own recipes, like Wild West Chipotle Meatloaf and the Black Bean and Corn Chipotle Dip.

“Internally we struggled, since this is a totally new segment of business for us,” says Sally Davis, who works on the Tabasco brand products as assistant brand manager for parent company McIlhenny Co. “While we wanted to provide a suggested recipe as a parameter for how best to use this product, ultimately we deferred to the chefs to do what they do best and experiment with it.”

For some kitchens, promoting the same recipe as the kitchen down the street posed a conflict.

“We didn’t want to force the kitchens to use that recipe if the competitive kitchen down the street was using it. We left it flexible,” Potter says.

Manuals are also delivered to the kitchens with details on running the promotions, along with branded table easels, posters and other marketing materials, Potter says.

As with any new venture, kinks are being worked out. The Tabasco promotion was challenged when many of the half-gallon plastic jugs of sauce were damaged during shipments to the kitchens.

“We lost a lot of product in the eleventh hour, but our warehouse got the product out in time,” Davis says. “Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something happens. We were just excited that we could pull it off.”

Davis says she was “sort of aware” of the meal assembly concept through a co-worker, but when approached by the Meal Assembly Network, she thought specifically about the Chipotle sauce.

“We know that consumers really have to taste [Chipotle] to know that it’s completely different from Tabasco Original Red and can be used in totally different ways,” Davis says. “This went beyond people just taking a product home and you never really know if they use the product or not.”

To determine the program’s return-on-investment, Davis relied on a recap and feedback from Potter.

“The program was validated by feedback that found consumers being surprised that the product was different, that people had never heard of it,” Davis says. “We thought that alone was a huge success for the product. We felt really good about it.”

Davis says the company will “definitely” be considering another sampling program with the Meal Assembly Network in 2010, but is focusing on Tabasco Original Red in 2009, “which doesn’t need as much sampling.”

In less complex promos, Juicy Juice provided drinks and Lipton supplied its Pure Leaf Tea for customers to sip while preparing meals, and to be packaged with meals to go. And General Mills set out samples of its Chocolate Turtle Chex Mix at 500 kitchens.

“This may work to give sampling campaigns the added benefit of word-of-mouth transmission; when you distribute products among groups related by common interests, they tend to talk to each other and to their friends,” says General Mills Promotions Planner Molly King.

At the Meal Assembly Network Web site, visitors can locate a kitchen in their neighborhood and also see what brands are being sampled at which locations.

One location, Cookin’ Dinners in Norwalk, CT, is sampling Fresh at Hand spices, owned by C.F. Sauer Co., which also markets the more well-known Spice Hunter brand.

A program for its top-two sellers — basil and garlic — began last month and continues through the holidays as people spend more time preparing meals and entertaining.

A recipe for George’s Famous Gumbo that called for a half packet of basil and a half packet of garlic hung over the preparation station one day last month. Nearby, a table was set up that displayed the spices, along with other products sampled at the kitchen, including General Mills Chex Turtle Mix, Betty Crocker Molten Chocolate Cake Warm Delights Minis and Splenda packets. Betty Crocker was running a national ad campaign at the time of the sampling.

George Gardone, the owner and chef at Cookin’ Dinners, says the program benefits both the brand and the kitchen because the samples expose the products to a targeted audience and provide a “beautiful giveaway” to his customers.

“It’s a good marriage,” he says.

About 300,000 Fresh at Hand garlic and basil packets were shipped to 500 kitchens.

“It makes sense that the way to sample is to provide people with products to use at home at their leisure,” says Tania Biswas, senior brand manger at C.F. Sauer.

To determine whether the program is working, Biswas relies on the customers for feedback. Each customer receives a branded card that reads: “We want to know what you think.” An incentive to be automatically entered to win a $250 Visa Gift Card encourages them to go online and complete a survey. Six weeks later the company will go back to those consumers to find out if they had subsequently purchased any Fresh at Hand spices.

“There’s always the caveat that this is the first time we’re doing it. We always go back to see if it works,” Biswas says.

The spice program followed a successful program the firm ran in June through the Meal Assembly Network for its flagship brand, Duke’s Mayonnaise.

Dream Dinners, a chain of kitchens that has 179 locations in 37 states, has not worked with the Meal Assembly Network, but runs its own promotions. It has partnered with Nestlé, Kraft Foods, McCormick, Martha Stewart and Redbook. It alerts its 300,000 customers to the promotions through an e-mail blast.

The kitchens, or stores, as co-founder Stephanie Allen prefers to call them, featured a pot roast recipe from the new Martha Stewart’s Cooking School cookbook.

It ran a cross promotion with Redbook magazine, which supplied a recipe, Country Chicken with Apples, and, in turn, featured Dream Dinners in one of its issues. Dream Dinners customers were offered a special one-year subscription rate of $5.99.

And in a signal that products other than food may find a niche in the kitchens, Dream Dinners ran a promo for Liberty Mutual during fire safety month. It played up recipes like Firehouse Penne with Meatballs that could be spiced up to one, two or three alarms.

THE DISH ON MEAL ASSEMBLY KITCHENS

NUMBER OF KITCHENS

US 1,002

Canada 61

Australia, Britain, New Zealand 1 each

U.S. REVENUE

2008 $370 million

2006 $220 million

2004 $30 million

PORTIONS SERVED

2008 110 million

2006 70 million

2004 9 million

KITCHEN FORMATS

• 1/3 of the industry is made up of the two largest franchises: Dream Dinners (207) and Super Suppers (143)
• 1/3 are smaller franchises (10 to 50 locations)
• 1/3 are independent stores

CUSTOMER DEMOGRAPHICS

• 90% to 95% women, mostly moms
• HHI greater than $80,000 per year
• Use meals to cook at home
• Dual- and single-income families

BUSINESS FORMATS

• Session dominant: customers sign up in advance for a session and come in to assemble the meals themselves. Customers are typically there for two hours. Average bill: $150
• Retail dominant: standard hours, customers don’t sign up in advance, often pick up pre-assembled meal to go. Average bill: $50

Source: www.easymealprep.com