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PANTRY BLUE DINOSAUR IN THE PANTRY Blue Dinosaur Director Mike Watts-Seale tells Retail World that as a result of the pandemic people have spent time focusing on what’s important to them, and “health and wellbeing have come out tops”. “It’s not new that when times are tough people resort to comfort foods, but what we’re picking up is that people are especially keen on permissible indulgence, which means selecting a snack that tastes nice but also helps them achieve a dietary goal, improve brain function, or comes in a smaller format, and they’re prepared to pay for that. That’s the space we’re in,” he said. “I don’t think in the healthy snacking space there is as much concern with price as with quality in terms of reaching protein count, etc.” This, he says, is where the Blue Dinosaur Lamington Bar and Protein Bar “over index” above other snacks, because they meet the criteria of taste and functional benefits, while the lamington reminds adults of their childhood, which also contributes to sales. “Consumers are increasingly reading ingredient labels to find out what they’re eating, with a tremendous amount of information coming through gyms and the like about fitness and diet,” Mr Watts-Seale said. “Health \[claims\] used to be focused on excluding fat, sugar, calories, cholesterol, whereas now it is more focused on nutrition.” He says superfoods “aren’t trending as hard” as they were, with the focus on holistic eating. “There’s no one ingredient people are preoccupied with, but rather a focus on wholefoods as well as plant-based protein,” he said. “This sees a consumer switch from our brand at times because they’ve found out about something they wanted to achieve in their own diet.” As to plant-based protein, Mr Watts- Seale says that this is inefficient to work with because with every 50 per cent of usable protein, there is 50 per cent by-product. “This means that to get high protein content in a product is difficult because there’s such an extreme amount of dehydrated plant product that’s not very enjoyable to eat,” he said. “Therefore, we use egg instead, which is 98 per cent protein, enabling us to get closer to the protein holy grail.” Novelty important but has limitations Mr Watts-Seale says Australians are open to novelty in that they love to try new things, but trends can fall by the wayside quickly with a movement back to the baseline of foods known, so a compromise is involved. “Social media does play a part in getting younger people, who are generally more open to experimenting, to try new things,” he said. He emphasises, however, that the brand also attracts plenty of business from older, educated consumers who could be going through a “change of hormones later in life, as an example” and are happy to try out new foods and diets to help them cope. Mr Watts-Seale says the lack of perceived disruptors, barring a few companies performing well in the “online health and protein bar space”, bodes well for new niche products Blue Dinosaur has in the wings that cater to a currently untapped market. “We’ll also put more focus online from a marketing perspective as it provides a wonderful opportunity to talk directly to the consumer and get to know who they are and what they’re looking for,” he said. BAROSSA FINE FOODS AND BICKFORD’S SEIZE THE DAY South Australia Premier Steven Marshall, speaking at the Food South Australia Summit 2020 virtual event in June, said the organisation had reported that food business profitability had been significantly impacted due to the loss of sales for foodservice channels such as restaurants and event venues, as a result of Covid-19 operating restrictions and closures. However, he noted positive impacts, such as many food businesses wasting no time to step up to the challenge. “They’ve diversified across products and sales channels,” Mr Marshall said. “They’ve upgraded e-commerce activities to enable consumers to order online. “There are many examples of the transformative approach taken by the food industry here in our state, from Barossa Fine Foods setting up an online shop and extending an invitation to other businesses to offer a convenient one-stop online shop, to Bickford’s, which took production of hand sanitiser from an idea to full production in just 20 days.” 54 RETAIL WORLD SEP, 2020