Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Salted caramel dilemma

Today at Costco I came across Kirkland brand salted caramels. The were little pieces of caramels coated in milk chocolate. No matter how much I wished to dislike them, I have to admit that they were passable, tasty even (if I was hungry or had really bad cravings for chocolate). The were packaged in a plastic jar with a lid-so tacky, but hey they were also about $4/lb, so who can beat that, right?
These caramels once again made me wonder if indeed what we make at Das Foods will make the cut in a cold world of commerce. In an abstract world all of the wonderful ingredients and good deeds that surround our products (sustainable! made with ingredients purchased from small vendors! no corn syrup) are very differentiating. But does all of this meet it's cold reality at the moment of face off moment with $4/lb (vs Das Caramelini, that sells at about $15/lb)?
I think that in this day of high unemployment and across the board realization that high levels of disposable income are gone forever, businesses like Das Foods need to think hard and re-evaluate how we do business and position the products we make.
There is a lot of buzz around the statement 'green is dead' nowadays. I don't think it is, but if a consumer packaged good business (like Das Foods) wants to continue capitalizing on green positioning strategy, a different take on green must be employed. in business community green is very much alive, but that is because businesses were able to articulate how being green and sustainable delivers "triple bottom line"- a.ka. "people, planet, profit" model. In other words green first and foremost needs to deliver tangible benefit to all of those parties (yes, including increased profits too). Green also cannot cost more than conventional-or at least that is increasingly the fact in B2B world. The triple bottom line has been successfully articulated to and internalized by the business community and therefore green strategies are very much alive.
In the consumer world the situation is quite different - lots of companies market green as a benefit, but it is all too apparent that one has to pay extra for it with no additional benefits other than intangible self- satisfaction that comes from the sense of contributing to some ambiguous cause. So- faced with this dilemma many people will go fro the $4/lb caramels because they are simply cheaper .
To survive and co-inhabit the space with "cheap" alternative our businesses must think and articulate triple bottom line as well to our customers. This is how I see triple bottom line playing out for our business
  • Using local ingredients allows us to fuel $$ back to the vendors that otherwise would not be able to survive
  • Local vendors are mindful about the environment and kinder to the earth and the surroundings in which they farm or gather
  • By being local producer we are able to provide employment to a few people therefore contributing to economic growth
Are local and artisan products more expensive? of course they are, especially vs. Costco prices. But at the same time, what price would we pay if there was a no local alternative to Costco??