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Case Study - Tucker's Natural

Case Study - Tucker's Natural (pdf, 155kb)

Tucker’s Natural - what consumers want

Sam Tucker from Tucker's NaturalA clear understanding of consumer behaviour – and a determination to deliver on what specific groups of consumers actually want - underpins product development at gourmet biscuit and cracker company Tucker’s Natural.

As a direct response to customer concerns about genetically modified canola, the company switched exclusively to rice bran oil in its products soon after it was established and in 2010, Tucker’s introduced a high fibre snack range as a direct response to growing consumer concerns about healthy eating.

By starting with the consumer and developing products based on their desires, Tucker’s has achieved rapid penetration into major retail channels and solid growth, despite the economic challenges of recent years. Branding and communications strategy is integral to that success, helping Tucker’s Natural tell the whole story of both the products and the company.

In just three years Tucker’s Natural has achieved a significant international profile by being what they say they are - and making sure it’s what their customers want them to be.

Consumers in charge

If there are two buzzwords in the consumer world right now, those words would have to be ‘health’ and ‘diet’.

Worldwide research is revealing a strong focus amongst consumers on health and a desire for foods that are better for us. This is causing consumers to ask all sorts of questions of producers and manufacturers about the origin of ingredients and their effect on our health. Increasing rates of allergies amongst children has also prompted parents to undertake their own research via the internet and other sources rather than simply relying on marketing claims.

The advent of interactive communication via websites, blogs and social media offer new opportunities for businesses to talk directly with consumers, adding to the invaluable experience of meeting consumers at trade shows and similar events. It’s there, where the consumers are, that the real ‘gold’ of consumer feedback can be found.

Tucker’s Natural has always put their key staff, including Managing Director Sam Tucker, and global brand consultant Thomas De Masi on the frontline at trade shows. Sam is also at the receiving end of customer feedback phone lines and writes the company blog. When consumers talk, Tucker’s Natural is listening.

Tucker’s Natural - from gingerbread to high fibre

Tucker’s Natural was founded in 2007 and produces savoury and sweet gourmet crackers and biscuits. Whilst Tucker’s Natural is only a young company, the Tucker family bring to the table some 30 years combined experience in the international food industry. The business has actually grown out of a failing enterprise they purchased called The Great Australian Gingerbread Company. Managing Director Sam Tucker set out to produce crackers and biscuits and to sell them internationally through a sister distribution business, Food Service Solutions. They now export to over twelve countries worldwide.

Monitoring international trends meant that when Australian consumers began telling Tucker’s they did not want genetically modified ingredients in their products, the Tucker’s knew it wasn’t an isolated complaint.

“We were confident that we were responding to a real concern from a significant proportion of consumers because we were talking to those consumers directly and watching worldwide trends,” Sam said.

Tucker’s set out to replace all oil in their products with rice bran oil and went back to their consumers with the results.

“The response was excellent and did a lot to establish a loyal relationship between us and our customers,” Sam said.

Natural?

This was the start of Sam Tucker’s investigation into the growing concerns his consumers have about healthy choices and was the impetus to develop the new Multifibre Snack range.

Launched in 2010 in the range includes three flavours and delivers a hefty 16% plus of daily recommended fibre intake in an all-natural, low fat, low salt, low sugar snack. Calorie for calorie, the Multifibre Snack range significantly out-performs rivals such as rice crackers and water biscuits for fibre content and reduced salt, fat and sugar.

‘Natural’ can mean just about anything under current Australian law as there is no agreed definition. It’s already an over-used marketing claim and consumers can be sceptical. So Tucker’s Natural decided on their own definition and then set about communicating this to consumers, cutting through the confusion and building on the trust already established.

“For us, natural means derived from nature, not modified and no chemical substitutes,” said Sam. But ‘natural’ was only part of the recipe for a successful new range. Tucker’s were also picking up on the concerns and confusion Australians have about their dietary fibre intake.

Research shows that most of us don’t get anywhere near enough fibre in our diets. The Tucker’s knew from talking to consumers that part of the reason for this was the lack of appeal of high fibre foods in terms of flavour and convenience.

“We looked at children’s snacks and what adults put in their office lunch boxes. We wanted to come up with a really tasty treat that was easy and convenient – it had to really deliver on flavour and it also had to offer significantly more fibre content in the right mix of insoluble and soluble fibres to promote good digestive health.”

To achieve the perfect recipe, Tucker’s Natural had to overcome some significant production challenges. The wholegrain content of the crackers makes processing harder than more refined products, while the company’s determination to produce an all-natural, preservative free cracker that still meets retailer shelf life requirements meant many months of testing. Staying away from chemical additives wasn’t a problem, but delivering flavour with a minimum salt content was.

“We settled on a mix of Australian sea salt and mineral-rich rock salt to deliver maximum flavour. This was really important because there’s so much salt in snack foods that consumers often feel low salt alternatives lack flavour when it’s really the salt they’re used to,” Sam said.

“We also want our products to be made from Australian ingredients and to come from sustainable sources because we are proudly Australian and just as concerned about the environment as our customers. We’re on this journey together,” he said.

Telling the story - branding and communication

With the product fully tested and ticking all the boxes to be accepted by authorities as a low fat, sugar and salt food, the next step was to tell the consumers what the company had been up to. At this point, Tucker’s Natural utilised branding and packaging to expand the company’s philosophy and build profile. They needed an identity that supported their values and also stood out on the shelf.

Thomas De Masi of De Masi Jones, a leading Australian brand and marketing company, has worked with Tucker’s Natural since the company was established. He attends the trade shows with Sam, five times a year, every year and believes that contact is absolutely vital to the brand’s success. “We are in front of the consumers, the big company nutritionists and the buyers and when they see Sam Tucker, the owner of the company, right there in front of them, it changes the whole conversation. They can talk directly to ‘the man who makes the crackers’ and they are amazed they can do that,” Thomas said.

Thomas and Sam took the Multifibre Snack to the US and tested it on consumers who had already tried and discounted a lot of functional foods since the idea of functional and super foods first appeared almost a decade ago.

Testing in the US as well as in Australia gave the company insight into the right sizing for packs and provided feedback on the product itself. Back home, De Masi Jones set about designing packaging that tells the whole story of the range – raw, natural and healthy. Integrated into the end results were a combination of recycled cardboard, vegetable-based printing inks and additional information about the role of fibre in healthy digestion on the packs.

All these ingredients helped to differentiate the product from dozens of competitors with bigger advertising budgets.

According to Mr De Masi, no strategy is going to work unless you take note of the environment you are selling in and what your competitors are doing, so part of his research included looking at the best of the best both here and overseas.

“You have to be able to compete in your category with the really big brands or you lose your shelf space. It’s that simple,” Thomas said.

Where to from here?

“We ignore consumers at our peril,” says Sam Tucker.

“If we look again at those strong international trends we can see that health, and specifically digestive health is driving a lot of research and getting a lot of media attention. In turn that’s supporting consumer education and will be in their minds at the supermarket.

“But we also know statistics don’t tell the whole story. There can be a gap between the desire and the final purchasing decision. We’re hearing a lot about how hard it is to get the mix of good dietary decisions and consumer appeal right.

Consumers are telling us that they feel under pressure to do the right thing but the myriad of claims made is confusing.”

Keeping it simple and focusing on the consumer’s feedback has enabled Tucker’s Natural to respond with new products that meet a need and also deliver a strong brand value of simplicity and trustworthiness. That’s also helped them penetrate the larger retailer networks because they are responding to a consumer desire that the big companies know is real.

“We’re now seeing our larger competitors coming to recognise what we saw in terms of the importance of ‘natural’ ingredients and products in the market but we are also seeing some claims being made about ‘natural’ that aren’t really telling the whole story. For us, that means we continue to stick to our commitment to keep to simple, unadulterated ingredients and consistently focusing on this when talking about our products through our branding and communications.

“We will also be value-adding our online communications by providing helpful links and resources for consumers wanting more information on digestive health. We see helping to improve consumer understanding of the health issues as a way we can support our customers and as an important part of the marketing mix. It’s so easy to do and consumers really appreciate it. It’s all about respecting what consumers know and what they want.”

For further information

Sam Tucker
Managing Director
Tucker’s Natural
p +61 8 8244 2422
f +61 8 8244 2411
e sam@tuckersnatural.com.au
w www.tuckersnatural.com.au