Food & Beverage Brands: Standing out on crowded shelves

Standing out on crowded shelves has always been a unique struggle for food & beverage brands. You’re not just competing for space, but also for attention. And in crowded segments such as protein and nutritional bars, plant-based meat alternatives, and many other trending categories -where new brands are constantly entering the market – finding your niche and attracting new customers takes very careful planning and placement. So, what can you, as a food & beverage brand, do to stand out?

Innovative Product – Innovative Market

Recently, on Beyond the Shelf, we spoke with Jody and Todd Boyman of Hungry Planet. They have created a line of plant-based meat alternatives that are intended to be easy swaps for meat products. Traditionally, most plant-based products are marketed towards vegans and vegetarians. However, as Jody and Todd shared with us, they are more interested in attracting flexitarians – that is, those who are interested in cutting down their traditional meat consumption. Because their products are extremely versatile, one of their core messages is to share how accessible and easy it can be to use one of their products in lieu of traditional meat. This approach has been extremely lucrative for them and has even helped them enter food service.

Hungry Planet’s story is unique but not entirely uncommon. Their out-of-the-box thinking helped them position themselves into a seemingly untouched market within a larger trending category. They found their niche, and it’s working for them! The biggest takeaway from their story is that sometimes your best marketing strategy is the road less traveled. It’s a risk, yes, but in crowded categories sometimes risk is necessary to stand out.

Differentiation Through Taste

With the costs of food and beverage products rising, consumers are becoming more discerning with their spending. Taking a chance on a product that is new to them and that there is a perception they might not enjoy is a risk. Enter the ChefsBest Excellence Award – a beacon signaling high-quality taste independently verified with a long history of supporting brands in every aisle and virtually all categories for over two decades.

At ChefsBest, tasting is a science. Identifying high-quality foods is an objective process rooted in the expertise of sensory scientists with decades of experience and professional chefs who have undergone months of training in sensory acuity and our proprietary evaluation methodology. Once a food & beverage brand qualifies, they are awarded the coveted ChefsBest Medallion. The award can then be licensed and used in the brand’s marketing programs to communicate to consumers that their product is high-quality, validated by an objective third party.  The medallion can be used directly on product packaging, point of sale, online, and other marketing platforms.

To learn more about our ChefsBest Excellence Award, contact us today.

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