McCain Foods is relaunching products in its frozen food portfolio to include simple, wholesome ingredients that consumers can find at home, as part of the company’s “it’s all good” commitment.
The product revamp was sparked by consumer research that found 85% of Canadians are looking for prepared foods that are made with real ingredients that they recognize, said Heather Crees, vice-president of marketing at McCain Foods.
The TNS study also found that close to 90% of Canadians would be more likely to purchase frozen convenience foods if they were made with “real ingredients,” and 86% of Canadians want food companies to be more transparent about the ingredients in their products.
McCain is therefore on a journey to ensure its frozen convenience products are made with healthy ingredients that one could find in their kitchen, Crees said.
Frozen pizza, pizza pockets and potato products are the first to be launched under the new banner, and are currently available in most stores across Canada.
McCain presented consumers groups with a list of ingredients and asked them which ones they liked, which ones they wanted removed from products, and whether or not they knew what the ingredient was.
“From that we came up with a list of ingredients we would remove from the product and a lot of them are unfamiliar and unpronounceable,” she said.
Keeping certain lengthy ingredients was unavoidable however, to maintain transparency, packaging now includes a description of why that particular ingredient was included, said Crees.
For instance, sodium phosphate can be found in McCain’s potato products to help them retain their natural colour, otherwise they’d be black, said Crees.
McCain is supporting the commitment with a multi-platform campaign using the new “It’s all good” tag line that includes TV, print, social media and website redesign.
The effort will launch at the end of the month with a series of TV ads, each one focusing on a specific product, in addition to an overall brand spot.
Taxi developed the TV and print portion of the campaign, Capital C managed promotions and digital, Anthem designed the new packaging, AOR handled the buy and Veritas managed PR.
