Looking back at a year filled with “next big things,” Profit assessed the hype quotient of several trends with its Hype Danger meter. One trend that performed well and seems to have real momentum in the retail market is artisanal product marketing; the explosive growth of micro-breweries, farmers’ markets and Etsy.com prove the consumer’s craving for authenticity hasn’t been overestimated.
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While the trend should be good news for smaller operations, larger competitors are now working to inject some of that hand-crafted charm into their mass-produced products. Now that it’s become trendy to buy handmade goods, could big corporations wedge smaller players out of that niche?
The latest big player to go “authentic” is Pizza Hut. The large pizza chain is purposefully letting air bubbles and stray cheese mess up its pie crust. Officially, this will be announced as a revamped hand-tossed pizza with a lighter, airier crust. Although Pizza Hut isn’t publicizing it, deliberate imperfections are also part of this recipe.
Carrie Walsh, Pizza Hut’s chief marketing officer, said employees were trained to have “more freedom” when stretching out the new hand-tossed pies. The idea is to give them a more handmade look, in line with the growing push by companies to ensure their food doesn’t seem as though it rolled off factory conveyor belts. “What we want to highlight is that these really are handcrafted,” she said. “We’re encouraging them to make sure they make each pizza one of a kind.”
Pizza Hut, which is owned by Yum Brands, isn’t alone in making an extra effort to give its food a more homespun look. According to the Canadian Press, Domino‘s has also said it encourages employees to be more flexible in shaping the dough for its “Artisan” pies. McDonald‘s cooks the egg whites for its new breakfast sandwiches on a griddle to create a looser shape, rather than the perfect discs in its traditional Egg McMuffins. And Kraft Foods says it developed a machine that makes its Carving Board turkey look as though it was sliced by a person.
In this story about the “buy local” trend, James Cooney, CEO of Rowe Farms (a Guelph, Ont.-based seller of eco-friendly, locally grown and antibiotic- and hormone-free products) says communicating Rowe’s principles to customers is essential. Its stores emblazon its “Quality with a conscience” tag line on a mural detailing what Rowe means by phrases such as “locally grown” and “conscientiously farmed.” And a map at the checkouts highlights the name and location of every farmer Rowe buys from.
There’s more! For advice on how small businesses can compete with multinational brands in the hand-made market read the full article in Profit
