Pride of San Juan Partners with Emeril to Enter Retail Market

Pride of San Juan hasn’t always been in the retail business. In fact, only 20 percent of the company’s business takes place in the aisles of the nation’s grocery stores. Foodservice is where it all began.

Stephen Wyrick started the company in 1996 to bring chefs and other foodservice users quality spring mixes. And one chef, Emeril Lagasse, has since partnered with the company to bring high-quality, unique fresh-cut lettuce and greens to retail consumers.

“Our advantage of being able to work with Chef Emeril brings a lot of excitement into branding produce,” Wyrick said. “It speaks of flavor and fun and quality.”

Douglas Wyrick, Stephen’s brother, joined Pride of San Juan two years ago to handle marketing for the company’s emerging retail line.

“I think what we’ve tried to do is to really create synergies between the two (Chef Emeril and Pride of San Juan),” Douglas said. “Everyone knows who he is, and that is a great benefit for our entry into the market.”

Among the products that bear Emeril’s name are spring mix salads, whole leaf salads, fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes, leeks and fennel, garlic, onions, potatoes and shallots. But the product that Douglas called the epitome of the Emeril partnership is Bam! Blends. Bam! Blends are a recipe-ready combination of fresh herbs in a plastic clamshell container.

“Fresh herbs have a relatively high shrink rate and a high level of consumer confusion,” Douglas said. “And certainly nobody buys herbs on impulse. With that product, we take a lot of the guesswork out of it – the best person to educate consumers is Emeril.”

Each package of Bam! Blends herbs is pre-measured and features one of Emeril’s own recipes on the back, including a shopping list.

“Consumers can get all the items in the store, and we know the dish is going to turn out great because Chef Emeril developed the recipe,” Douglas said. “The recipes developed on the Bam! Blends are relatively simple, like what Emeril prepares on Emeril Live!

“We’re seeing great success in the marketplace. These products have three times the sales rate of the previous herb items that were available.”

Bam! Blends aren’t the only area where Chef Emeril is involved. Emeril isn’t just a partner with Pride of San Juan, he’s an active participant in the company.

“Chef Emeril comes out here on the farm quite a bit,” Stephen said. “Emeril’s involvement is really a big key for us in making sure we’re doing stuff right. This guy has an amazing palate.”

Knowin’ Your Customer

In addition to Emeril’s involvement, Pride of San Juan has its own advisory council. Made up of about 35 people, the advisory council is a group of the company’s customers that are active in finding new product offerings for Pride of San Juan. The council participates in surveys and works with the company to determine trends.

Keeping on top of the needs of its customers is important to Pride of San Juan, as it releases new products every quarter.

“We’ll make new items, then explore with Emeril and the advisory council,” Stephen said. “We pick a category and try to find a way to kick it up.”

And it’s a good thing.

Douglas said competition in the spring mix category is fierce, especially as they go on shelves next to companies like Dole and Fresh Express.

“In the spring mix category, we have some pretty strict competition, and for us to find our niche has been exciting,” he said.

“Emeril’s line needs to be kicked up a notch,” Stephen added. “And we do that by finding items that are familiar yet unique enough that consumers will instantly notice they are different.”

Makin’ the Switch

Entering the retail arena was made easier by the widespread acceptance and expectation for high-quality spring mixes. Once consumers are exposed to something in a restaurant setting, they want to try it themselves at home. And that’s exactly what happened with spring mix.

Pride of San Juan packs not only under its own label but under many private labels to service the foodservice industry.

One particular fast food chain launched an entirely new type of salad with Pride of San Juan’s products.

“They took spring mix to middle America,” Stephen said.

Now most major fast food chains carry a spring mix salad.

“Just a few years ago, spring mix was something you’d eat in a nice restaurant, and you’d never expect to get that quality of salad in a fast-food restaurant, but now it is everywhere,” Douglas said.

And though consumers were ready for the products, there were still some challenges Pride of San Juan had to overcome to bring its products to the retail marketplace.

“The biggest challenge was how we reorganize a company that has been centered around foodservice to support retail,” Stephen said. “The demands of the customer are very different; from the way we sell it to the way we market it are extremely different.”

Pride of San Juan has reorganized internally. The company now has regional retail salespeople covering different areas of the country. Before, all selling was done in-house.

Douglas said other changes were not so major.

The company just underwent a major expansion in 2004 that added 118,000 square feet, so meeting demand was not an issue. Finding appropriate packaging was not a problem, either, Douglas said.

“We’re in really good shape and ready for the challenge,” he said.

Puttin’ Food Safety First

All fresh-cut products – be they retail or foodservice – are produced using strict food safety standards and quality assurance practices.

“We have a high passion for food safety,” Stephen said.

“We have a great, top-notch food safety team,” Douglas said.

Pride of San Juan received a superior rating from the American Institute of Baking and from Primus Labs. In fact, according to Pride of San Juan’s Web site, the company is in the top 5 percent of all food plants in America.

“We are in the same level as Kraft and other very high-end food facilities,” Stephen said.

Part of Pride of San Juan’s Food Safety Assurance Program includes a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program that ensures all sanitation, quality and food safety programs are in place. The company also undergoes third-party audits and inspections.

Though Pride of San Juan is not yet using RFID, the company does have trace-back capabilities.

“We code everything that ships out of our plant,” Douglas said. “It’s a mechanism so if we ever get a complaint we can trace back to the production run – it’s a standard requirement.

“We’re a very nimble company, so we can move quickly if we need to.”

Lookin’ Forward

In the future, Pride of San Juan will continue to develop new products that keep consumers coming back to grocery stores and restaurants for more.

“We’re always looking to explore new items to keep our catalog fresh,” Douglas said.

Douglas and the marketing team at Pride of San Juan will continue directly marketing to retailers and chefs and working with them to develop the product offerings. One thing they will add is direct-to-consumer marketing.

“Now that our distribution is broad enough, we have confidence in customers being able to find our product,” Douglas said.

For more information on Pride of San Juan, visit www.prideofsanjuan.com.



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