Catering for kids on the go
children get a balanced meal and parents to provide them with it
with the minimum of fuss, is one of the most innovative products
launched at this week's SIAL show.
In most Anglo-Saxon countries, the idea of packing the kids off to school with a lunchbox is widespread, far more so than in Continental European countries such as France. But the concept of the on-the-go consumer is now becoming an increasing part of many companies' strategy, and has thrown up some interesting marketing ideas.
One such idea was making its market debut at the SIAL food show this week. Servip, a French company with a distinguished pedigree in providing pre-packaged meal solutions for the airline industry, has created a product designed entirely for children - Les Petits Voyageurs.
Marie Sarger, director of marketing and development at the company, told Food and Drink Europe.com that the idea had come about quite by chance. "Two years ago, we were asked by one of our customers to produce a meal solution for children, and that got us thinking about the possibilities of catering for this market.
"There was a fun side to providing products for children which appealed to us, and when we discovered that there was a broad demand for a convenient product which had a longer shelf life than the traditional picnic lunch, we began to develop the Les Petits Voyageurs range."
Catering for children, though, is not just a fun experience; it also requires a lot of thought. "Children are extremely demanding consumers, and it quickly became clear that if we were to make a success of our lunchbox concept, we had to get the support of the brand owners," explained Sarger.
"Kids are difficult to please, and the best way to make them happy when it comes to food is to give them something which they know and like. That was why we had to look beyond our usual suppliers in the catering industry and target branded product producers. But we were overwhelmed by the level of interest from the industry, and as a result we have agreements with some of Europe's leading food producers, such as Fromageries Bel, Nestle or Danone."
But if children are hard to please, it is their parents who must be persuaded to buy the product in the long run, and this meant ensuring that the lunchbox contents were more than just well known names.
"At every step of the development of this product we have involved a nutritionist, in order to ensure that the each of the four lunchboxes offers a balanced diet," Sarger said. "In fact, educating both children and their parents has been an important part of this project. With increasingly large numbers of children leaving for school every day without eating breakfast, we knew that there was a market for this kind of product which can be picked off the supermarket shelf, but that it had to do more than just stop kids feeling hungry at school. So the products we chose to include also help children get a daily dose of important minerals such as calcium, as well as vitamins such as vitamin C."
The packaging of the product is also designed to be educational, swapping the traditional plastic lunchbox for a much more eco-friendly recycled paperboard. "Kids are learning more about the environment at school, and so we felt we had to make a stand with our product and avoid plastic. The boxes are made from plain unprinted paper, and we put a set of stickers in with the meal to help encourage children to decorate and personalise them, and then use them for keeping their toys in or carrying their school books."
There are four lunchboxes in the range at present, although they are in fact designed to meet children's nutritional requirements throughout the day, from breakfast to lunch via a mid-morning snack. "It is important to stress that these are not meals which should be used entirely to replace 'normal' meals - they are convenient products which can replace one meal a day. We are planning more lunchboxes in the range, but they will be in order to offer mums a broader choice, not to replace even more meals," Sarger stressed.
The fact that these products are shelf-stable and unlike other products do not have to be stored in chilled cabinets and eaten quickly gives them a distinct advantage, and other products, destined for adults and with a different food content, are in the pipeline. A hotel chain has asked for a lunch product for its guests, while other ideas include packed lunches for day-trippers and ramblers.
While it is not a cheap product - out of necessity, because it contains a variety of branded products, the lunchbox retails for around 6.5 to 7.5 euros - Sarger said that it was still cheaper than buying the same contents individually - at least from some shops.
The future is bright for this innovative new product, which is already on sale in Monoprix stores in France. "Once suppliers saw how popular our product was, we had many of them come to us and ask us if we could include their products in our lunchboxes," explained Sarger. "We had to turn many of them down, unfortunately, because their products were fresh, and did not fit with our business model. Others were keen to be part of the box, but only if we removed another product from one of their rivals, and we were not prepared to do that either, not least because we have agreements with all our suppliers.
"But we can still add variety to the product, because we can use different products from our existing suppliers in these lunchboxes, which we will almost certainly do as we expand to other countries - for example changing the Smarties in one of the boxes to Kit Kat for the UK market because that is a bigger brand there."
