Spotlight: Making fruit a treat

Peeled Snacks aims to make fruit convenient and craveable.

Fruit at its ripest can be a craveable treat. But fresh fruit spoils, bruises easily, gets punctured. Dried fruit is not as juicy as fresh fruit, but it’s able to go anywhere. How do you get the portability and shelf life of dried fruit in a form that approximates the taste of fresh fruit, or that at least adds a little something different to make dried fruit a craveable, near-decadent treat?

It typically takes almost 6 lbs. of fresh fruit to yield 1 lb. of dried fruit. This makes dried fruits a much more concentrated source of energy, fiber, vitamins and minerals, but also more expensive.

The national 5-A-Day for Better Health Program, in place since 1991, recommends five servings of fruit and vegetables per day. However, approximately 70 percent of Americans do not consume this amount, often because they think it is too difficult or time-consuming to prepare.

Dried fruit is similar to snack foods in its ease of consumption. It is hand to mouth, bite-sized. Peeled Inc. (www.peeledsnacks.com), New York, set out to produce a good tasting, easy-to-eat snack that could provide the healthfulness of fruit and yet be easy to consume like common snack foods. The result is the three-item line of Peeled Snacks.

Noha Waibsnaider founded Peeled Snacks when she "noticed that something was missing in the snack market. You could get processed potato chips, sugar-filled candy, or energy bars with mysterious ingredients, but you couldn't get something that made you feel good about snacking.”

For this review, we’re focusing on Shock-olate, a mix of pears, apricots, almonds, walnuts and dark chocolate.

Understanding the marketplace

The dried fruit and nuts market grew 47 percent from 1998 to 2003, when it reached $3.2 billion. The largest category is nuts and seeds, followed by dried fruit and cooking nuts. Key drivers of growth have been the benefits of nuts in reducing heart disease and the low-carb diets that suggested nuts were the primary alternative for snacking.

U.S. per capita consumption of dried fruits was 0.064 servings of fruit per day in 2003 versus per capita consumption of fresh fruits of 1.26 servings per day in 2003. This suggests that consumption of fresh fruit is more familiar to consumers than dried in spite of the long history of dried fruits. It also suggests that most Americans don’t follow the 5-A-Day plan, that there is a big need for consumer awareness and a radical change in behavior.

While nut marketers have made their products more convenient through packaging, variety and availability, dried fruits have not advanced. Top producers of dried fruits are Del Monte, ConAgra, Sunsweet, Sun-Maid Growers, Paradise, Dole, Waymouth Farms, Mariani and Ocean Spray Cranberries. How does a young brand like Peeled Snacks break into this marketplace?

In addition to being healthful and convenient, Peeled Snacks sport clean, contemporary packaging and clever monikers.

The key to bringing consumers to this brand or product space requires either moving them from a familiar brand or bringing new consumers into the franchise. The key here is to create a brand or product that leverages interests and/or behaviors that potential new consumers already have.

The majority of Americans (88 percent) snack at least once a day. The frequency of snacking declines with age, from a high of 3.1 snacks per day among 1-2-year-olds to fewer than two snacks among those 70 and older, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service.

Since snacking is such a part of our everyday lives and consumers are trying to eat healthier, Peeled Snacks is trying to help the consumer feel good about snacking by giving them something healthy to snack on.

Peeled Snacks set out to create a positioning of snacks that are made with ingredients the consumer can recognize. Products feature large pieces of fruit and nuts that provide a natural source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. The fruit is in the original large cut fruit piece size with no added sugar or fat. The nuts are dry roasted and lightly salted. And for the chocolate lovers, they use the finest dark chocolate.

Insights

Fruit is one of the most highly craved foods, fitting between cheesecake and steak. Fruit for many can be more craveable than ice cream or chocolate. Its craveablity is driven by the product and emotional attributes. Fruit is a very emotional food.

The key attributes for fresh fruit in order are: taste, product appearance, thirst, aroma, season, texture and mood. Consumers are looking for “fresh fruit … ripe and in season …premium quality.” The sensory aspects and the emotional ties to stress reduction and relaxation are key drivers for fresh fruit. Fresh fruit is consumed mid-afternoon, mid-morning, at breakfast and late evening/right before bed.