Brands Test Sampling at Meal Assembly Kitchens

“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