EASY EATING

TOM ZIND

The industry's creative minds are looking for new opportunities to make eating vegetables easy.

The revolution started with ready-to-eat items. Bagged salads eliminated much of the waste and prep time of cutting up heads of lettuce and vegetables for a meal starter. Packaged cut vegetables made healthy snacking and some meal preparation easier. Now, what may be lacking are ready-to-heat fresh offerings that meet consumer demands for higher-quality meal solutions.

Companies are rolling out products in advanced packaging that allow the vegetables to be steamed in the microwave. Several Midwestern chains reportedly took part in a six-week test in the spring of a line of new microwavable vegetables marketed by Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A., and a national retail rollout began June 1. Using a concept originally designed by the Cryovac Food Packaging Division of Sealed Air Corp., for steaming precooked meat-based entrees, the Del Monte Fresh Microwave and Serve Vegetables line is being touted as a breakthrough that offers consumers a foolproof way to cook fresh vegetables perfectly.

"Consumers are looking for convenience and these days, microwavable meals are a common offering on supermarket shelves," said Matt Smith, Del Monte's vice president of marketing. "The new film and packaging system offers a quick way of cooking vegetables with superior results."

Del Monte declined to identify the retailers who handled the product in the test market phase or the chains currently offering it.

The product line consists of three items: baby carrots; a vegetable medley that includes baby carrots, broccoli and cauliflower; and mixed vegetables, which includes baby carrots, cauliflower and sugar peas. Each product comes in 6- and 12-ounce versions, carrying retail prices of $1.99 and $2.99, respectively.

According to Del Monte, the vacuum-packed tray products have a 10-day shelf life and are designed to be placed directly in the microwave without any piercing, peeling or other film prep. After approximately four minutes in the microwave, the vegetables are done - lightly steamed and ready to eat.

Microwave-ready packages of fresh vegetables sold in the produce department are hardly new. But unlike packaging that's designed merely to allow vegetables to be essentially heated up in a microwave, Cryovac's packaging - marketed as Simple Steps for Produce - boasts the ability to steam the vegetables. Steaming is considered the cooking method that delivers the best taste and which retains more of the nutrients of fresh vegetables.

In the frozen food aisle, Birds Eye Foods has unveiled a Steamfresh line of flash frozen vegetables packaged in bags that can be placed directly into a microwave with no package prep and come out perfectly steamed. The line is being hailed as a big breakthrough in further improving the convenience and flavor proposition that frozen vegetables offer.

The prospect of being able to offer consumers a better eating experience, in addition to convenience, would seem to have obvious appeal to marketers and retailers. Still, there are indications the new concept may have an uphill climb to broad acceptance. The first company to try adapting Cryovac's Simple Steps packaging for fresh produce discontinued it after encountering lukewarm retailer response and discovering it couldn't make the needed margins.

The company, Sun Valley Fresh Foods, Kelowna, British Columbia, got some initial distribution of fresh vegetable products packaged with Simple Steps in Safeway Canada and two other Canadian chains.

"It turned out to be too premature for the Canadian marketplace," said Bev Dixon, Sun Valley's general manager. "It wasn't cost effective for us to offer it at the price point they wanted and some weren't keen on it because they thought it would compete with their 'hard' lines of fresh product."

But other marketers of fresh vegetable products that utilize packaging that's microwave-ready indicate they're seeing growing interest from supermarkets.

Jason Landry, northern sales manager for Sholl Group II, an Eden Prairie, Minn.-based company that markets fresh vegetables sold under the Green Giant Fresh brand, said the company's small, but growing line of fresh vegetables packaged in bags that can be placed directly in the microwave is attracting more supermarket produce buyers. Single-serve-portion bags of different combinations of vegetables like green beans, carrots, squash and turnips are of interest to more supermarket buyers, Landry said.

"We're currently doing some business with these items in two major chains in New England and one in Pennsylvania that are recognizing the uniqueness of the concept and appreciate that it's something new," Landry said. "The green bean microwave product has really taken off in the Northeast, and that sparked our interest in doing some other items."

Although not designed exactly like the Simple Steps for Produce steamable packaging used by Del Monte, the Green Giant Fresh products' packaging still gives consumers a simple, ready-to-heat fresh vegetable alternative, Landry said.

Even smaller fresh vegetable suppliers are evaluating new forms of microwavable packaging. Sheppard Farms, a Cedarville, N.J.-based grower-shipper that supplies mainly regional retailers, experimented last spring with steamable microwave packaging for its fresh-cut asparagus.

Utilizing a product developed by a joint venture of an English packaging company and the Food Innovation Center at Rutgers University, the company shipped some 600 cases of the 10-ounce packaging to King's Supermarkets, a chain of 26 upscale supermarkets based in Parsippany, N.J., and Bozzuto's, a Cheshire, Conn., wholesale grocer that supplies independent grocers.

"Focus groups who tried the product liked it, and the retailers who tried it liked it, but it was tough getting the product into their distribution systems," said Tom Sheppard, a co-owner of the grower-shipper. "Repeat orders weren't there."

Still, Sheppard hasn't given up on the concept. Before next spring, he said he'll evaluate the prospects of expanding the packaging beyond asparagus to include items like squash and chopped bell pepper. For a small shipper, the key to using the packaging system is to have a more year-round supply of products, he said.

Microwave packaging is one of the hot trends in convenience produce, but it's hardly the only one. Suppliers are looking at other ways to help retailers make produce more convenient for consumers to incorporate into a quick meal.

Green Giant Fresh, for example, introduced a line of four stir-fry mixes that incorporate different combinations of cut vegetables and packets of different sauce. Billed as a quick meal solutions product that can be paired with a protein, the mixes feature products like broccoli, carrots, snap peas, bok choy and celery cut to stir fry-friendly sizes.

Renaissance Foods, a Rancho Cordova, Calif., supplier of fresh-cut produce, is moving more heavily into meal solutions products. The fresh-cut vegetable combo packs merchandised as soup and pot roast mixes are some of the company's new forays into making produce more relevant to consumers with busy schedules, said Jim Catchot, the company's president and chief executive officer.

"Instead of having to buy whole product and prep it, our product is ready to go with all the ingredients you need along with recipe information," he said. "These provide the high level of convenience that shoppers are looking for today."

In a Quandary

As new crops of value-added produce come to market, retailers must consider how and where to merchandise the products - not just whether to handle them.

Suppliers that work closely with retailers said there's a fair amount of head-scratching in the merchandiser ranks over what to do with products that can be equal parts fresh, prepared ingredients or stand-alone meals.

Department placement is an issue, said Jason Landry, northern sales manager for Sholl Group II, the company that markets the Green Giant Fresh product line that's been expanding to include products like microwave-ready vegetable packs. Just as retailers didn't know exactly what to do with bagged salads several years ago, Landry said some managers are in a quandary over the best merchandising tactics for meal solution-type fresh products.

"While some think these products should be placed near the whole cooking vegetables, one chain we've worked with has started to create a special, separate convenience section for these items," he said. "We try to get them to create an area that's separate from bagged salads, but the reality is that they're ending up at least close to where bagged salads are merchandised."

Jim Catchot, president and chief executive officer of Renaissance Foods, a Rancho Cordova, Calif., supplier of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables to supermarkets, said he's seeing more "destination" centers crop up in stores he supplies for products that are more meal-solution oriented, such as vegetable mixes for soups and microwavable products. The items are sufficiently different and may have enough appeal to a different kind of customer to deserve a dedicated area, Catchot said.

Additionally, Catchot said some supermarkets are using fresh produce meal-solution products as a way to develop more cross-merchandising schemes.

"With our kabob trays that include vegetables like mushrooms, onions, squash and peppers, along with a skewer, we're seeing some retailers merchandise them in the meat department," he said.