It’s not easy to get a new kind of food off the ground and into mainstream retail. Mia McCarthy has done it twice.
She launched ready to eat breakfast, Yummia Bircher Muesli, in 2011. Now McCarthy has launched a Yummia brand extension, a yoghurt that helps people achieve their 5 plus 2 per day - it includes a vegetable as well as fruit. Strawberry and beetroot are paired in one variant, sweet potato & cinnamon in another, and apple and carrot in a third.
Yummia is estimating 1000% growth by the end of 2015 financial year. PKN asked McCarthy to give us a "tour" behind the scenes of the new range.
PKN: What was the thinking behind Yummia's new yoghurt - not so much the 'wholesome/five plus two' story, but the business thinking, marketing and positioning strategy?
Mia McCarthy: The yoghurt market is quite heavily saturated in the Australian FMCG category so when we saw a gap for a vegetable component to be in the yoghurts we knew it would be a great product opportunity to produce something completely new. For us it was more identifying an opportunity and working out how to create it into a product on shop shelves.
It has been a quick evolution for the yoghurts from concept to production – it was all done within three and a half months so it’s been full on for product trials, design, packaging lead-times, production etc. but we wanted to launch products that were of a high quality and were well designed.
Our marketing strategy has a focus on familiarising consumers with our new and unique flavoured yoghurts and making them aware of the Five Star Health Rating that the products have received. We’re lucky enough to be positioned in the Woolworths Chilled Healthy Bites range, which has a high calibre of health food options and this being among healthful brands will build our credibility and exposure.
PKN: What were the major decisions that determined the packaging form - size, shape, materials, lids/close-ability...including suppliers. What sustainability determinants were involved in this?
McCarthy: The yoghurts needed to have certain levels of real fruit and vegetables in the product to achieve the Five Star Health Rating, so that definitely helped to determine the portion size per/pot.
Appropriate sealing is imperative for all products, so we included foil and a top lid to preserve freshness and quality. The inclusion of the lidded spoon was a no-brainer for us as we want to cater for the consumer that is on the go. We want Yummia to be the go to ready-to-go snack option with its convenient packaging and delicious flavours. Other ready-to-go products in the market have very similar packaging to Yummia, and the trend seems to be taller thin tubs, rather than shorter ones. We looked into packaging suppliers to find if they could source what was best for Yummia moving forward.
PKN: What was the thinking behind the packaging design? Who were the designers and what were the major decisions made during design development?
McCarthy: The yoghurts are the second products in Yummia’s range as we already have a bircher muesli range that was already on shelves. We wanted to maintain the overall appeal across from the birchers but still be able to position them as a different product.
We have a wonderful design team, Boxer & Co, in Sydney who we have absolute trust and faith in. It’s important to outsource to professionals who understand your business and your vision and can transform your ideas into packaging works of art! We love the work that they produce. The information on the packs is guided by product and industry standards and guidelines, and we work with the QA team to ensure we are supplying all the required information present on the pack. As we achieved the Five Star Health Rating, we were able to proudly display it on the front of the pack!
