New Spins On Traditional Favorites
Consumers love the convenience of ready-to-serve pasta sauce, but convenience alone won't cut it.
Pasta dishes ranging from spaghetti and meatballs to fettuccine Alfredo long have been popular meal staples for North American consumers. And many of those consumers rely on jarred or canned ready-to-serve sauces to make at-home preparation of their pasta dish favorites faster and easier.
But today's consumers are considering much more than just convenience when it comes to the pasta sauce purchase decision. Retailers will need to pay close attention to current and emerging consumer trends impacting the category if they are to attain — or maintain — success on the store brand side.
Trends with traction
Some of the consumer trends impacting the pasta sauce category are reflected in the claims product marketers call out in relation to new products. For products introduced in North America between December 2011 and November 2012, the top five product-related claims include all-natural, gluten-free, low/no/reduced allergen, no additives/preservatives and ethnical/environmentally friendly (specific to packaging), according to the Global New Products Database from Mintel, a global market research firm.
Another category trend, one that actually has been around for a while, is that toward premium offerings. In its November 2011 "Pasta Sauces — US" report, Mintel notes that premium pasta sauces did well even during the recession.
Matthew Hudak, U.S. research analyst for Euromonitor International, Chicago, says he expects the trend toward premium pasta sauce formulations only to grow.
Trends on the horizon
Although the foodservice segment usually is a good predictor of trends on the horizon for food at retail, Mary Chapman, director, product innovation for Chicago-based Technomic, points to little in the way of notable new offerings here. Technomic's MenuMonitor resource, which tracks the menus of the top 500 restaurant chains, shows the top ingredients associated with new pasta sauces introduced in the third quarter of 2012 as being rather traditional — garlic, cheese, chicken, tomato and parmesan — and not much different from those appearing on the list in the third quarter of 2011. The top flavors also are similar to the previous year's quarter: garlic, tomato, basil, onion and "spicy."
But one pasta sauce trend from overseas — Romesco pasta sauce — is starting to make an appearance in the United States, notes Daniel Granderson, an analyst with the Packaged Facts division of MarketResearch.com.
"While Romesco, made from red peppers and almonds, is nothing new in Spanish cuisine, we have seen and will continue to see more applications for the versatile [sauce] across culinary lines, including being used in pasta," he says. "To date, there have not been many jarred Romesco or Romesco-style sauces introduced in the U.S. … though there have been several international launches in Spain, Turkey and the UK. It's only a matter of time before Romesco gains greater prominence stateside."
Hudak also points to a need to a move into new flavor varieties of pasta sauces, with some featuring exotic additions, to stay relevant with younger consumers.
Finally, outside of current and emerging trends, perhaps the biggest store brand pasta sauce opportunity lies in smart merchandising and marketing. A 2011 survey Kellen Co. performed for the National Pasta Association found that 77 percent of pasta eaters would dine on pasta more often than they currently do if they knew they could build a variety of smart, healthful meals using it. And considering that pasta almost always requires some sort of sauce, retailers likely would see a positive impact on sales by educating consumers in relation to pasta's healthful attributes and providing a wide array of recipes that incorporate store brand sauces.