Turover Straus Quoted in the News:
Ready-to-cook premium meals good bet for the U.S.
Hey Bob, I read your timely article about the lack of innovation in the frozen (microwave) dinner category with great interest. Yes, it appears that while the freezer case has been in a dogfight over price, consumers have increasingly turned to more expensive entities like casual dine chains, which now derive up to 10% of their sales from dinner carry-out; and to dinner assembly stores like Dream Dinners, which are proliferating around the country.
The freezer may be great for a lot of things; but for many who want to source and prepare a quick, fresh, convenient, good-tasting dinner for one, two or more people these days, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Shelf-stable apparently doesn’t cut it for consumers, either. And refrigerated meals with a 30- or 60-day shelf life might as well be shelf-stable or frozen ones.
Having just returned from an extensive tour of retail grocery chains in Europe, I can tell you that time-starved consumers are increasingly turning to the relatively new, ready-to-cook premium meals category, consisting of raw ingredients mixed together via a proprietary recipe and a fancy package. Companies like Bigham’s, which didn’t even exist 10 years ago, are scooping up all the profits in the chilled dinners market, and other companies are scrambling to catch up.
All I can say from the plant tour that Charlie Bigham gave me and my colleagues is that his business model is brilliant. In terms of capital costs, any decent size grocery chain or forward-thinking manufacturer could evolve the current U.S. model, perhaps by diving full-steam into the UK approach that relies on compact distribution systems, short shelf life, product quality, and a different way of thinking about “manufacturing” and adding value for consumers.
Or at the least, we could take a page from the playbook manufacturers and chain restaurants use to deliver “freshly prepared” meals to consumers in restaurants, and use it to evolve the way we position the freezer case and its relevance to consumers today. (Hint: Many of these items enter the restaurant frozen.)
Anyone who is interested in discussing (or challenging) these strategies for reinvigorating the convenience-oriented dinner market is encouraged to contact me at c.wolf@tsgnpd.com or 417.889.0770.
Chris Wolf is the Director of Strategic Innovation for The Turover Straus Group (www.turoverstraus.com), a product development consultancy focused on concepting processes and culinary innovation exclusively for the Food & Beverage Industry. The Morning Cup - November 7, 2006 - Link to Article on Web
Enter the pulse breakfast bar, developed by Dustin Hilinski, executive chef, Turover Straus Group, Springfield, MO. It turns out the ever-popular breakfast bar is an ideal vehicle for pulses.
Hilinski developed three flavors of bars - cinnamon apple, strawberry chocolate and peanut-butter pretzel - that contain as much as 30% yellow pea and lentil flour. High in soluble fiber, vegetable protein, oligosaccharides, isoflavones, selenium and resistant starch, they are also gluten-free, have a low glycemic index, and contain cholesterol-lowering plant sterols and omega-3s. Those attributes give pulses an entirely new appeal.
Plus, the bars taste great. "Despite all the interest in energy bars and breakfast bars, we believe consumers have been sacrificing taste for convenience and nutritional benefits. They won't have to anymore," says Hilinski.
The prototype healthy breakfast bars are currently being made in the Turover Straus development kitchens, using a formula developed for the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council, Moscow, ID. Food Product Design - September 2006 - Link to Article on Web
Both brands represent products that are based on core product and brand expertise, but specifically formulated to address women's health concerns. The timing correlates to several trends that have been converging for nearly two decades. "Three things are coming together right now that are causing this trend to happen," explains Tim Straus, a partner in Turover-Straus, a food development consulting firm based in suburban Chicago. These include the wide dispersion of women's health information and the effects of ingredients such as soy, calcium, folic acid and iron on specific conditions. In addition, recent government approvals for nutrition claims and a willingness by food manufacturers to address differentiated, target markets have converged to create a new marketing stage for such products. "All three of those roads are intersecting right now and making it possible for a manufacturer not only to produce these foods, but to actually make the claims in their advertising and on their packaging," Straus says. Developing Foods Special Report - January 2002
"As everyone migrates toward ease and convenience, the entire industry starts shifting in that direction," stressed Tim Straus, a partner in The Turover Straus Group, Inc., a firm specializing in market research and product development. "It used to be the big decision was whether to cook at home or eat out. Today, it's a whole different mind-set. You can go to McDonald's, or Bennigan's, or the supermarket and buy and entire meal, take it home, and eat in 10 minutes. Or I can buy a fresh or frozen meal and eat in 15 minutes." Food Technology - May 2001
"The consumer's skill level in preparing meat is dismal," says Tim Straus of Turover-Straus, a firm cooperating with the NCBA effort. "Consumers want it fast. Something we can prepare in 20 minutes. That's the average prep time for dinners in America," he says. All Breed Beef Magazine - 1 March 1999 - Link to Article on Web
Farmland-National hired the Turover-Straus Group in Chicago for initial product development for the line. "The concept came together very quickly. It really took very little time," remembers Alan Turover. "Frankly, we haven't worked on enough meat products to know that this was supposed to be impossible.
"Once we had the concept, the first big thing was determining the flavor profiles," he continues. "We developed multiple profiles of each of the three basic flavors we wanted. We began that process by going out and buying an awful lot of commercial Italian and Mexican foods, mostly frozen. We wanted to know, "What does Italian and Mexican taste like to the American consumer?"
The product developers eventually came up with what Turover calls "protocepts," which he describes as "more recipe than formula." At the same, the firm experimented with various fat levels in the ground beef. Noting that the exact fat percentage of the final product is proprietary information, Turover said, "The level we chose was the one that gave us the best flavor. If the meat's too lean, you don't have any flavor."
The simple, "basic" product concept proved difficult to wrestle into commercially viable production. For one thing, Farmland-National needed enough shelf-life on the product to distribute it nationwide yet still have the product retain all the qualities of freshness at retail. This was complicated from a meat-technology standpoint. "When you really get into the development of it, grinding meat and extending shelf-life are not really compatible," explains Turover. "The meat particles begin deterioating almost immediately, which is why almost all ground products processed back in a meat plant and then shipped to retail are shipped frozen. That stabilizes them. But Farmland-National didn't want a frozen product; the fresh aspect of Ground & Browned is critical." According to Spreer-Raschke, the product has a 30-40 day shelf-life from the time the packages of Ground & Browned arrive at the retail store.
"Not only that, but duplicating a flavor profile at commercial-production levels is not easy," continues Turover. "It's not a matter of taking a protocept that worked in the lab and multiplying all the ingredients by 10 or 100 times."
Focus groups helped the product development team refine flavor profiles and find the right product name. When all was said and done, Turover pronounced himself and his firm "awfully excited" by Ground & Browned. Meat Processing - April 2001 - Link to Article on Web
Convenience will drive consumer meat choices - Meat Marketing & Technology - October 2001 - PDF (468 KB)
