Oser Communications Group

GOURMET NEWS OCTOBER 2015 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 8 Revamped grocery store environments and new food shopping formats prove that Mil- lennials are having a profound impact on the food shopping landscape. According to the report, "Food Shopping in America," by MSLGROUP and The Hartman Group, Mil- lennials' food purchase decisions are driven by their unique consumption patterns, con- straints on budget and spontaneity. These factors differ from older generations and offer brands major challenges and big op- portunities to attract these shoppers. "Millennials are more spontaneous and adventurous than previous generations in their interactions with food and beverage," says Laurie Demeritt, CEO of The Hartman Group. "Millennials' strong ties to technol- ogy and new ways of engaging with food and beverage occasions make this genera- tion's shopping and dining habits worth watching, not just for clues about what young adults want but for ways that Mil- lennials are influencing changes across gen- erations." The report finds that traditional grocery's less differentiated positioning is gradually losing ground to the better value and con- venience often found in mass/super chan- nel. Among Millennials, mainstream grocery's position is particularly precarious. Less than 10 percentage points separate the two channels (63 percent of Millennials shop at mass/super vs. 69 percent at main- stream grocery). Millennials are also more likely than older generations to shop two or more stores on each visit to purchase all of the items they need. "Brands must adapt to connect directly with the Millennial shopper," says Steve Bryant, MSLGROUP Director of Food and Beverage Marketing. "Millennials value companies that are authentic and transpar- ent, and are more willing to connect with companies that try to address their needs. Marketing efforts should focus on carefully tailored, personalized communications, with a focus on both convenience and af- fordability." Understand and Attract the Millennial Shopper Budget Limits Choice Millennials face more budget constraints than Gen X or Boomers+. Nearly half (49 percent) said household budget limitations were the top issue making shopping more difficult. Millennials' median household income ($37.5K) is significantly lower than that of Gen X ($62.5K) or Boomers+ ($72.5K). Connect with Millennials on Mobile Devices Millennials are active and connected shop- pers – most (70 percent) use their mobile devices while shopping for tasks like check- ing a shopping list kept online or on their device, contacting another family member, searching for a coupon and finding a recipe. This creates an opportunity for brands to connect with them via mobile commerce. Personal Recommendations are Key While price has the most impact on Millen- nials' food choices, they also highly value personal recommendations from friends and family as well as peer reviews when making purchase decisions. Personalized marketing efforts that leverage referrals from Millennials' own social networks will be more effective than endorsements from an outside source. Unique Mix of Items in Their Cart Millennials tend to purchase a unique mix of prepared, convenience items, such as frozen pizza, as well as specialty items, such as baby and pet foods, organics, dairy alternatives and sports drinks. About the Report "Food Shopping in America" is a nationally syndicated report published by MSLGROUP and The Hartman Group. The report is an in-depth exploration into how consumers plan, decide, shop and divide their loyalties in the era of unlimited choices and blurring of channels. GN Conventional Grocers Losing Ground with Millennials Bellwether Farms Continued from PAGE 1 commuting distance from the city, and it didn't take them long to decide that they were going to need some animals to eat all that grass. "By the end of the first summer, the grass was over six feet tall," Callahan says. Then, three years in, the family had about 100 sheep grazing on the farm when a visi- tor from the Middle East remarked that they could be milking them. "Everyone in the Middle East that has sheep are milking them," he told the family, as Callahan recalls. "We thought it was a crazy idea at first. We never realized that some of our favorite cheeses were sheep's milk cheeses. We had never looked beyond the wedge of cheese." That question came up as Callahan was finishing school in the spring of 1990, and Cindy asked her son if he thought he might like to learn how to make cheese. "It sounded interesting, sounded challenging. I was able to see something for the work I had done. I felt like I was working with and for the family, which was unusual at the time," he says. "Once we started it, there was so much to learn. It appealed to me be- cause I've always had a scientific analytical side, but there's a lot of it that's beyond analysis.... It's amazing – you never can know it all in this." The FDA's recent heightened scrutiny of raw milk cheeses is one of many issues that's making it harder to make good sheep milk cheeses these days, Callahan says. "That's something that adds to the cost of doing business: recordkeeping, additional lab work," he says. "It's an expensive move for a HACCP program to be implemented and maintained. That's really tough for the smaller people. It's tough for everyone. When you're a one-person or a two-person operation, it takes a full-time person to be the liaison to the regulatory side of the in- dustry." He points to current uncertainties sur- rounding how cheesemaking is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that are frustrating him. Most of the code under which his operation is regulated is subjective, he says. "The key phrase is 'in a sanitary method' or 'well-maintained,' and there have been differing opinions of what that means," he says, citing last year's con- troversy over aging cheese on wood boards as an example. While it's possible to almost completely eliminate the risks of consuming cheese, that would come at a price, according to Callahan. "Somewhere at the back of every- body's mind, we're worried that that's where it's going to go. For a lot of products, it wouldn't do good things to the product," he says. "It's like fresh fish versus canned fish or a smoked fish versus canned fish. They're both preserved, but by taking it to a further step with the canning, you com- pletely change it. It's no longer the artisan, traditional smoked fish. It's the same thing for cheeses." Those uncertainties and the greater scrutiny that's being directed at raw milk cheeses may end Bellwether Farms' pro- duction of raw milk cheeses, Callahan says. "People like our raw milk cheeses, and we can't meet the demand for them, but they are growing at a slower pace than our other products, and as it grows to be a smaller part of what you do, you start asking your- self about the risk. You start thinking about whether you're going to have a problem," he says. "Raw milk cheeses present a bigger risk, and it impacts everything you do be- cause people hear that. It damages the brand." GN Marin French Continued from PAGE 1 Cheese Awards in London honored Marin French Triple Crème Brie cheeses with three out of four awards in the soft-ripened category, awarding a Super Gold to a new cheese, Supreme. Following that win, the company's legacy cheese, Petite Breakfast, was selected as a winner in the 2015 Good Food Awards, recognizing authentic and re- sponsibly produced food. After Boyce's untimely death in 2010, Marin French Cheese was acquired by The Rians Group of France, which has since modernized the creamery with state-of-the- art equipment and aging rooms, new pack- aging with redesigned labels and an expansion of the retail shop on the cream- ery property. This year, Marin French Cheese is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a year-long schedule of celebratory events that pay tribute to the company that is the longest continuously operating cheese company in the United States. Rians, a French company that specializes in farmstead cheeses with European AOC and AOP identities, bought Marin French Cheese with the knowledge that the com- pany operates in a very environmentally conscious community and saw a fit that matched Rians' environmental ethics and respect for the places in which its cheeses are created, said Eva Guilmo, Quality and Food Safety Manager for both Marin French Cheese and Laura Chenel's Chevre, which was acquired by Rians in 2006. "Rians Group is built on having many small cream- eries that have terroir and a close relation- ship with their environment," she said. Like Laura Chenel's Chevre, where Rians built a new creamery from the ground up that incorporates modern technology to save both energy and water, Marin French Cheese is adapting its operations to mod- ernize and to save water, said Miguel Da Conceicao, Site Manager for Laura Chenel's Chevre. He arrived in California three years ago after transferring from a Rians goat cheese plant in France. "Every year we are doing things. That's why in three years, we have saved 30 to 35 percent of the water compared to what we used when we started this plant [at Laura Chenel's Chevre]," he said. "We haven't waited until California was in crisis to start doing things." "Proactivity is the word, always, and we want to stick to that," Guilmo added Marin French Cheese gets its water from natural ponds on the property that are fed from snowmelt and rain, although it hasn't snowed here since 1990. "Each year, after the winter, we look at our ponds and we manage from that," said Amelie Curis, Site Manager for Marin French Cheese. "I think it will be okay for this year. We should be okay for the next two years." As it modernizes its operations, the company is working closely with the fed- eral Food and Drug Administration as well as state regulators, Guilmo said. "We're working on the design of the ma- chines to ensure that they comply with the rules and even go beyond them in terms of standards of cleanliness and food safety. The dairy inspector comes every three months and we discuss the requirements for the dairy industry," she said. "With the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA is moving from a system of management of corrective actions to a system of antic- ipation of the risks with the implementa- tion of prerequisite programs which are good practices to run a food manufactur- ing plant. They're asking more about con- trol points and trends management before serious problems arise and require the manufacturer to issue a recall. We're moving from a corrective era to a proac- tive era in food safety." Industry self-policing is also helping to ensure that consumers are getting the safe cheese they want, she said, noting that the large retailers have begun asking their sup- pliers to provide products that meet con- sumer demands, such as dairy products made without the use of rBST, the bovine growth hormone that increases milk pro- duction when injected into dairy cows. "The use of rbST was approved as safe by the FDA. The FDA found that there is no significant difference between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST treated cows, but the distributors want rBST-free milk. The same thing is happening with GMOs," she said. "Consumers are always pulling us forward before the government does. By the time the government acts, we've heard about it, and it's already being discussed, which is a big advantage." GN

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