The barbecue products category and more generally the festive products category are on a roll! These product segments have recorded a strong momentum this year, with more and more specific and clear benefits to the consumer.
By Xavier Pilloy – XTC World Innovation
First, we must highlight the importance of sharing these products which are to be prepared and enjoyed with others. Given the redistribution of the European consumers’ purchasing power following the 2008 economic crisis and the difficult recovery, consumers consider food as a preferred means of pleasure without spending excessively. Faced with the purchasing power going down, this is valued. So sharing is a going-up value, a way to value your friends. Food and frozen products manufacturers have well understood this, hence the revival of innovations targeting the moments of shared consumption: aperitif, family meals (there is even talk about the return of the family food) barbecue and more generally the festive moments.
The Power of Convenience
What benefits do these innovations bring to meet this expectation of sharing? The most obvious benefit is that of convenience: efficiency in preparation, use, implementation and service. The consumer has not been born a chef and expects innovative solutions from the manufacturers to help solve the most complex tasks in the culinary preparation of a dinner party or barbecue.
For the barbecue, packaging plays a major role in providing this convenience. Proposing special barbecuing foils, vegetables in aluminum trays to put directly on the grill or cooking resistant wooden boxes, are as many ways to facilitate the consumer’s life during meal preparation. Another barbecue issue, found in every moment of consumption involving sharing, is the emergence of new consumer segments with diet restrictions. The gluten-free consumers target is larger than its medical reality. Many consumers believe gluten-free products as better for their health and transform a medical constraint into a healthy diet. The same goes for products containing lactose, considered harder to digest and the cause of medical complications (which remains unproven).
Finally, it should be noted the meteoric rise of the flexitarian target. The flexitarian is a consumer who voluntarily decides to reduce their consumption of animal protein-based products (usually meat products) and eat more vegetarian products, for personal reasons. We generally note economic reasons, health reasons (WHO’s report on the carcinogenicity of meat has not helped), environmental reasons and even security reasons, with multiple food frauds which affected the meat products sector (such as Horsegate in 2013).
Adapting to Trends
Sharing means not to stigmatize anybody. A barbecue is destroyed if anyone in the group feels left aside due to a food constraint he/she has chosen and considers important to them. Package marking of the gluten and lactose free products is a first action, the second action requires recipes that do not contain them, and remain tasty to the consumer. To aim the flexitarians’ target, the strategy is double. First, it is to offer 100% vegetarian products keeping the culinary codes of meat products. Thus, we will find lentil burgers, nuts and mushrooms to grill, breaded cheese sausages without meat. Keeping the product’s original form also keeps the flexitarian’s food pleasure, linking the combination of a known form (steak or sausage) with a specific consumption moment (barbecue). Beetroot and feta cheese sausages, tomato, basil and mozzarella sausages, or burgers with parsnips, carrots and cashews, are examples of innovative recipes that are now found in the recent barbecue offers. The second strategy is to adapt the already known vegetables or vegetarian products for barbecue cooking. Proposing a tray of summer vegetables or a mixture of marinade mushrooms directly on the grill at barbecue invites vegetables at this time of consumption. Frozen asparagus put directly on the grill is another example. The cheese stuffed half-potatoes, breaded fresh cheese stuffed peppers, the vegetables tian, grill tofu, or creamy potatoes gratin are many new products that the manufacturers managed to adapt to the barbecue moment.
Current BBQ Products
Let’s not forget that the barbecue innovation also relates to the traditional products for this time of consumption. A first lever of innovation is to offer in the form of sausage meat the food one does not usually consume. Thus, we have seen chorizo, rabbit, white sausage and duck sausages specially adapted for barbecue. These innovations help boost sales of such meat for a different eating time than the main course. Other more ambitious manufacturers also launch special barbecue kits to help the consumer cook these more complex barbecue meats. One example is a kit comprising rabbit cutouts, a pesto marinade and a curry one and barbecue cooking bags, all packaged in a packaging explaining all the maneuvers to be performed. Fish also tends to get a place on the grill: shrimp, cod, whiting skewers with yellow pepper compote, marinated fish on baking tray or salmon sausages invite the sea products at the party. The classical barbecue products manufacturers continue to innovate to always bring more benefits to their products.
Festive Products Growth
We notice specially placed references in this segment to capture the purchase of the consumer in search of all-ready barbecue solutions. Beef steaks with specific hash do not stick to the grill; Chipolatas with Roquefort inclusions, Espelette or tomato pepper and basil bring on new flavors; the mini size (mini merguez, mini nature chipolata, mini chipolata with herbs, etc.) is also acclaimed for allowing the consumer to taste all the products on the table without putting on weight. The exoticism brings a touch of diversity to the barbecue, where we can still largely find the same products. For example, manufacturers propose chicken skewers with chimichurri sauce, a sauce from Argentina, a country known for its culinary barbecue expertise. More broadly, the innovations launched for festive moments present the peculiarities of being adapted for sharing. The bite format (or mini format) naturally invites to taste everything, and thus to share everything (away from the binding single serving of traditional meals). The festive occasions, especially the barbecue seasonal consumption moment, not to be missed by manufacturers, constitutes a strong growth segment. It is important to place oneself above, providing a strong, noticeable and new benefit to the consumer. This is the key to successful innovation.
