During the Great Depression, my grandfather urged his children to be farmers because everybody has to eat. Today, we might say the same about food marketing.

The difference this time around is that we have many more choices. So it’s not enough just to produce food. Marketers are battling for share of stomach. This is where niche marketing comes in.

The auto industry is suffering, but Smart Cars and Mini Cooper sales are booming. They’ve found just the right niche in this environment — small, but cool cars that are fuel-efficient at a fairly reasonable price point.

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, (subscription required) another industry looking for a niche is the $25 billion appliance industry. With the housing slump, appliance sales are declining. Consumers aren’t likely to upgrade for new features in this economy. But they just might — to accommodate a lifestyle change. [more…]

Tucked beneath the Koolau Mountains on the leeward side of Oahu is Nalo Farms, salad bowl to Hawaii’s top chefs. There I met Dean Okimoto, owner and president. As we walked past neatly tended rows of produce, he explained that the greens he grows are different from their Mainland cousins. “Our environment is hotter — 74 to 90 degrees — and we have volcanic soil.” The conditions produce a different leaf structure and flavor.

Tiny leaves of arugula are more tender in the Islands and the additional sunlight makes the flavor more pungent. Because the leaves are thinner and lighter in weight than the Mainland variety, you get more volume. “One ounce of salad looks more like two ounces,” Okimoto said. [more…]

I am a constant reader, with ecclectic tastes. On my nightstand you might find a British murder mystery, military history (Civil War or World War II), political biography, contemporary fiction, or a literary classic (anything I never got around to reading in English Lit or any leftover paperbacks from my sons’ English classes).

Right now, I’m reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Memoir, by Bill Bryson, a hilarious look back at growing up in the 1950s in Des Moines, Iowa.

Bryson takes us back to American food tastes then:

“Like most people in Iowa in the 1950s, we were more cautious eaters in our house. On the rare occasions when we were presented with food with which we were not comfortable or familiar — on planes or trains or when invited to a meal cooked by someone who was not herself from Iowa — we tended to tilt it up carefully with a knife and examine it from every angle as if determining whether it might need to be defused. Once on a trip to San Francisco, my father was taken by friends to a Chinese restaurant and he described it afterward in the somber tones of someone recounting a near-death experience.” [more…]

I ate 12 desserts at one sitting yesterday. It was a recipe tasting for a client whose products are in the baking category.

People are envious when I tell them I get paid to eat desserts. It’s hard work, but somebody has to do it!

Actually, it is work. A tasting isn’t a time to pig out on food and just say whether you like it or not. This is serious business because the recipes are a critical marketing tool. Whether they are used on packaging, on a Web site, in a brochure, or for press releases to the media, recipes from food manufacturers should be designed to stimulate product purchase and usage, and ultimately, provide a positive result to motivate repurchase. [more…]

A little over a week ago, I facilitated a retreat in my home for the current and past board of directors of the San Francisco Professional Food Society. There were 17 people who were articulate, accomplished and just fun to be around.

The new SFPFS president, Joyce Jue, wanted to build exercises that would enable board members to get to know each other better, on the wise premise that people who have personal relationships with each other tend to work better as a team, are more likely to honor their commitments and will support each other more enthusiastically.

Through some ice breaker games, we learned fascinating stories about people’s passions, their careers and their families. And at the end of the day, everyone seemed to have walked away feeling more closely bonded to the group. [more…]

When my mother was a young, she worked as a clerk in a grocery store. All the goods were stacked behind the counter and the customers handed her a shopping list. My mom gathered the items, rang up the sale, then had the groceries delivered.

We grew up in the age of supermarkets. Mom, armed with her weekly shopping list, was only too happy to push the grocery cart through the aisles and pick up what she wanted, instead of having to wait for someone to get it for her. And the supermarket offered tremendous variety, unheard of in the grocery stores of her youth.

Today, the supermarket is only one of the many places we purchase food. The options for the consumer are staggering, with more types of stores selling food every day creating a battle for market share and the need for each type of retailer to stay on top of their game. [more…]

Friday’s Washington Post featured an interesting article about the need for corporate test kitchen home economists to dumb down recipes because today’s younger Americans don’t know how to cook. The article points out that Kraft Foods no longer uses “dredge.” And Betty Crocker avoids “braise.” Land O’Lakes works around “fold” and “cream,” while Pillsbury has eliminated “simmer” or “sear.”

As a recipe editor for my own business and the Ketchum Food Center, I also eliminate words that have the potential to confuse. Our goal is to create recipes that motivate consumers to use our clients’ products. When our precise culinary terminology obfuscates, it’s better to simplify to ensure that consumers doesn’t walk away from the recipe because they are too confused to follow it. [more…]

I’m on a Jet Blue flight, coming home after two days of meetings with magazine food editors, previewing a new line of barbecue tools, fuels and accessories designed by barbecue guru Steven Raichlen for The Companion Group. Steven, star of the PBS show Barbecue University and the author of a number of barbecue books, including the best-selling Barbecue Bible, explained the genesis of the new cool tools to editors and demonstrated how they work. The meetings had been a resounding success.

Now I’m on my favorite airline with its door-to-door TV (contrary to expectations, I watchHGTV and the History Channel instead of the Food Network), blue Tera Chips and flight attendants who actually help you hoist your bags into the overhead compartment (mine aren’t heavy — I just need to grow a few more inches to reach the bin).

Unlike other airlines that purported to serve meals, Jet Blue never had that aspiration. The best thing that has happened to domestic coach class airline food is seeing it disappear. Did we really need disgustingly flabby, rubber chicken with artificial grill marks, swimming in salty tomato sauce, accompanied with mixed frozen veggies? [more…]

Unlike the Chinese, who celebrate the lunar new year, January 1 is the start of the year for Japanese and Japanese Americans. For my family living in Hawaii, the week between Christmas and New Year’s was a time of frenzied activity — cooking and cleaning in preparation.

We wiped down cabinets, washed windows and screens, did all the laundry and made our house sparkle. We decorated the front porch with bamboo and pine branches.

New Year’s Eve was the thrilling start of the celebration, with firecrackers exploding sporadically from every front yard. Kids and adults set off Roman candles, sparklers, cherry bombs — a cacaphony of noise and sulphrous smoke filled the air — culminating in a mighty roar at the stroke of midnight.

And there was the food. [more…]

Recently, my 86-year-old mother lost her balance getting out of the car, fell and fractured four ribs. Which is why I wasn’t blogging last week. It’s made me think about the challenges we are going to face when 76 million Baby Boomers find themselves battling the aging process.

The first of the Boomers turn 60 next year. Last week, the White House Conference on Aging tackled the issues of aging by exploring cutting-edge technologies. Some of those technologies have to do with food. [more…]