Getting Excited About Fresh-Cuts

It’s not too often that my wife gets excited about a new product, especially a new food product. But that’s exactly what happened after she returned from a quick trip to Wal-Mart last week.

We don’t keep much in the way of ingredients in our house, so when we do decide to make dinner at home instead of going out to eat, one of us has to go to the store. Jamie drew the short straw this particular day and opted to drive down to the superstore instead of going to our local supermarket.

When she returned, she couldn’t wait to tell me about the new product she’d picked up. In looking for a bagged salad, she came across Organic Girl salad mix, and bought it because the shelf quality looked better than the other salads.

After she tried it at dinner, she continued to rave about the salad – it included cilantro, something she hadn’t tried in a salad before. The next day, she went back to Wal-Mart and bought the last package of the Organic Girl salad mix. I even overheard her telling a friend about the new salad brand that she had tried.

Why is her reaction to a new product important? She would fall into the target demographic for fresh-cut purchasers. She does most of the grocery shopping, eats healthful products and looks for quick, convenient meals solutions.

More importantly, it was the visual quality of the salad that led her to try it for the first time – and that led to at least one repeat purchase. The experience is important to repeat business, and the salad tasted as good as it looked. It had a unique taste that set it apart from other salads because of the ingredients. The packaging reinforced the positive attributes and was clearly marketed to female buyers with the descriptive language and logo.

What she overlooked was the organic nature of the salad. Organics compete for our spending dollars with conventional items – but this salad was only slightly more expensive (and because of the size of the package it was actually cheaper per ounce). The fact that the packaging was made from PLA also didn’t impact her significantly – she wasn’t even aware of it until I pointed it out, and then explained what PLA was. She also wasn’t impressed when I showed her how the package was designed to lay flat or could be stood up on end, but I guess that shows what men look at when making purchasing decisions compared to women.

Based upon her experience with that one salad blend, it’s likely that she’d purchase other Organic Girl products, and tell friends about those as well. A measure of success should be how many people a satisfied customer tells about the product, and in this case I think the folks at Organic Girl have done exceptionally well.


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