The Slow Lane
Summer is quickly approaching and with it comes those hot days when a cool ice cream cone or novelty is the greatest thing in the world to most children. The only drawback has been the melting and resulting stickiness.Popsicle ice pops may have found a solution to those two problems, though. Popsicle Slow Melts are made with a proprietary recipe and formulated to last longer than regular pops. As Julio Del Cioppo, Popsicle’s director of marketing, notes, “Kids love to see their tongue turn red when they eat a cherry Popsicle, but moms…have told us they melt too fast. With the introduction of Popsicle Slow Melt, some of our pops will be longer-lasting and cause less mess.”
The company is also debuting Popsicle Natural Colors and Flavors, promising to be the first novelty brand with natural colors and flavors. The natural move will be seen across the company’s line, including Fudgsicle and Creamsicle varieties.
In the Dough
Sandwich melts have long been a staple of sandwich chains around the country, but convenient, prepared versions of them have yet to make significant in-roads into the home kitchen. A recent package innovation may serve to change that.Oscar Mayer Deli Creations use a microwave receptor tray to create hot, “restaurant-quality” sandwich melts in around 60 seconds. The Kraft Foods product includes bread and Oscar Mayer meats, as well as Kraft condiments Grey Poupon mustard and Kraft steak sauce.
The quality melt is possible thanks to QuiltWave, a packaging that heats the bread to a soft yet warm consistency, while melting the cheese and warming the meat. The technology’s laminated quilts or pockets expand when exposed to microwave energy and provide close contact with the food product. Purportedly, it puts the hot surface immediately next to the food, driving away moisture and heating the bread.
Fresh and Fruity
Anheuser-Busch has embraced fruits in recent months, both for flavoring advantages and for more nutritional pursuits. First, the company has extended its energy drink offerings to present 180 Red with Goji. The beverage has a slightly sweet cherry taste, balanced with a subtle tartness, but the true selling point likely will be the Goji berry juice. This small “superfood” is said to contain one of the highest antioxidant levels of any fruit.Meanwhile, the company has augmented its Michelob Ultra products with fruit flavors. Michelob Ultra Fruit Infused Beers are pilsner-style beers with a hint of real fruit in flavors such as pomegranate raspberry (a berry aroma with a hint of pomegranate), lime cactus (“an exotic fruity bouquet with a clean citrus finish”) and Tuscan orange grapefruit (a “complex citrus aroma with fresh juicy orange notes and a slight pink-grapefruit finish”). They are limited-time offerings, however; the 4.2% alcohol by volume (ABV) drinks will only be available until Labor Day.
Trans-formers
Foodservice’s retreat from trans fat continues. Buca di Beppo, a 92-unit chain of Italian restaurants, has eliminated trans fatty acids from all of the oils it uses for cooking, including its fryer oil. Instead, the units have switched to a non-hydrogenated trans fat-free cooking oil made from a blend of cottonseed and canola oil.Likewise, KFC and Taco Bell have dropped trans fats from many of their offerings. According to Taco Bell, all 5,600 of its U.S. restaurants have switched to cooking oil free of trans fat. KFC, meanwhile, says all 5,500 of its U.S. restaurants no longer fry chicken in oil with trans fat, having switched to a new soybean oil. The new cooking oil will be more expensive but has not changed the fried chicken’s flavor, the company notes.
THE IN BOX:
For daily industry news updates, see the homepage ofwww.PreparedFoods.comandwww.NutraSolutions.com.Weight for Health
Information Resources Inc. (IRI) has released its annual list of New Product Pacesetters. While new product activity has been busy over the past year, that has not translated into tremendous sales. In fact, sales success has changed little during the past decade, and less than 5% of new products reached $50 million in first-year sales.The most successful new foods and beverages suggest the “eat healthy” message has firmly gotten through to consumers. Leading the pack was Kraft’s South Beach line with $231 million over its first year. The South Beach products clearly indicate a consumer concern with weight management, but they also focus on nutrition, including whole grains and “good fats” in the brand’s marketing strategies.
Weight concerns clearly weighed in favor of many of this year’s top 10, notably Coke Zero (which tallied $121 million in its first year), Lean Cuisine Paninis frozen entrées from Stouffer’s and two ice creams—Breyer’s Double Churned and Dreyer’s/Edy’s Slow Churned ice cream. Promising half the fat and a third fewer calories than the company’s regular line, the latter generated $229 million in year-one sales.
Another pair of products in the top 10 managed to focus more clearly on health. Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Bread featured whole grains and garnered $81 million its first year—good enough for the eighth spot—while a Dannon product turned attention to gut health. Dannon’s Activia yogurt added probiotics, featured a marketing campaign which clearly and unequivocally touted regularity—and managed to rake in $128 million in year-one sales.
For an in-depth view of the full “Times & Trends” report, click onhttp://us.infores.com/page/news/times_and_trends.
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Hamburgers are one of the most popular foods in America; more than 40 billion are consumed every year, according to Johnny Rockets restaurants. With that many beef-filled bites annually, the restaurant chain opted to ask consumers about their hamburger preferences and habits.The National Hamburger Month Consumer Survey (performed, appropriately enough in May—National Hamburger Month) found 70% of respondents preferred cheeseburgers to hamburgers. Some 74% of men want cheese on their burgers, compared to 67% of women. Other favored toppings included ketchup (63%), mustard (50%) and mayonnaise (42%), but innovative toppings are coming to the fore, including chili and onion rings (both at 6%) and barbecue sauce (7%). Less than 2% of respondents wanted their hamburgers plain.
If not consuming hamburgers, what do consumers prefer? Asked to name the food of choice for a summer barbecue, 35% said a burger, 26% wanted steaks, 24% craved chicken and 10% looked for a hot dog.
Acccording to the “18th Annual Weber GrillWatch Survey,” American consumers most often grill hamburgers (the choice of 64%), followed by steak (46%), chicken pieces (40%) and hot dogs (34%). Even the fifth and sixth favorites managed double-digit percentages: ribs (14%) and bratwurst (13%). Asked to identify their all-time favorite foods to grill, the respondents' choices altered a little: steak was the preference of 34%, with poultry at 13%, hamburgers (12%), ribs (7%) and pork (5%).