Totally Tubular

Food marketers are grooving on tubes.

ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods, Mott’s, Inc. and other CPGs are serving up snacks in a tube, from pudding and gelatin to organic applesauce and frozen coffee.

The kick began with the 1999 launch of Yoplait Go-Gurt from General Mills and gained momentum this spring. Tubes are highly portable, so they’re a convenient way to eat more healthful snacks.

“It’s a good way to get their fruit in them,” says Chris Curran, spokesperson for Stamford, CT-based Mott’s, which plans to sample Fruit Blasters in school cafeterias next month.

ConAgra will launch Squeez ‘N Go shelf-stable pudding this fall with a back-to-school campaign tied to skateboarder Tony Hawk. The Omaha, NE-based company sponsors Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam action sports show touring 20 markets in October and November, and will sample Squeez ‘N Go at tour stops.

“It’s a great way to reach households with kids,” says Charlene Lee, brand manager for snacks. Sampling and book-cover giveaways in schools support, with advertising set to break later in the fall. Frankel, Chicago, handles promotion; Dome Communications, Chicago, takes care of p.r.

Squeez ‘N Go joins Hershey’s Portable Pudding and Jolly Rancher gel snacks, which have been on shelves since June via a licensing deal with Hershey Foods. In-store sampling supports. Squeez ‘N Go isn’t likely to cannibalize the refrigerated Hershey’s Portable Pudding, despite its heavy chocolate skew. “We see some overlap, but it’s a matter of preference” for shelf-stable or refrigerated, says Lee.

ConAgra bowed Jolly Rancher gel snack cups last year, sparking a 26-point increase in category sales, according to a ConAgra spokesperson. Hershey’s Portable Pudding earned nearly $500,000 in its first month, per Information Resources, Inc., Chicago.

Jolly Rancher competes with Kraft’s fluorescent X-treme JELL-O gel sticks, which bowed this spring with print and TV ads via FCB and FSI and Internet support from EastWest Creative, both New York City.

Xtremejello.com hosts an Arctic 3D Racer game touting the refrigerated, six-flavor line. JELL-O refrigerated gelatin snacks sold nearly $80 million in the 52 weeks ended May 19, down 12 percent from the year before, per IRI.

Bright seems right. General Mills put Go-Gurt in glow-in-the-dark tubes this spring — a dairy industry first — for its tie-in to Star Wars Episode II. The line of 16 “light saber” tubes featured film characters. Go-Gurt sales rose nearly four percent to $125 million to gain a 5.4-percent share of the $2.3 billion refrigerated yogurt/yogurt drinks segment, IRI reports.

Skippy peanut butter begets Skippy Squeeze Stix, tubes of peanut butter in two varieties, creamy and chocolate. Unilever Bestfoods, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, is expected to bow the brand in the third quarter with TV and print support via BBDO, New York City. Colangelo Synergy Group, Darien, CT, helped with branding and handles promotions.

Squeeze Me

Even niche natural foods players are getting into the act (see “Planting the Seed,” pg. 26). Organic foods marketer Acirca, New Rochelle, NY, this month begins shipping Walnut Acres Fruit Squeezies, organic applesauce snacks in two flavors. It’s the first kids’ product under a brand known best for soups, salsas, and pasta sauce. Fruit Squeezies will sell nationally in natural foods stores and in supermarkets in eight Northeast and Northwest markets.

Mott’s introduced its Fruit Blasters snacks in April, with packages sporting Mad Libs via Penguin Putnam; the New York City publishing house wrote 81 different word-play games on three topics just for Mott’s, which will sample the product in school cafeterias this fall. Ryan Partnership, Wilton, CT, handles supporting FSIs, P-O-P displays, and checkout coupons; TV broke in May via The Wolf Group, New York City.

Tubes “work well for this brand because it’s a kid-focused product, and it’s good for you — it’s half a fruit serving,” says Curran. The line sells nationally at mass merchandisers and in East Coast supermarkets.

Not all treats are for kids: The Jel-Sert Co., West Chicago, IL, debuted Wyler’s coffee ice this summer. A first for its drink-mix brand, the product provides an adult-skewed complement to the company’s Fla Vor Ice line, which leads the $61 million ice pop novelties segment with a 55-percent share, per IRI.

But adults are a harder sell. Coffee ices, for example, “don’t fit the bistro image and don’t have the cachet of a Starbucks cup,” opines Michael Coleman, partner of design firm Source, Chicago.

General Mills’ two-year-old Yoplait’s Expresse didn’t catch on as well as Go-Gurt. Although Expresse sales barely topped $33 million, that’s a 134-percent increase from the year before, according to IRI.

“Adults are more self-conscious” about eating from a tube, says Jonathan Asher, president of design firm FutureBrand Coleman, New York City. “Kids like things a little more goofy.”

Still, drinkable snacks may find their niche. General Mills is rolling out Yoplait Nouriche, non-fat yogurt smoothies positioned as a meal replacement. The line reached stores in the West and Southwest in May, with national rollout pending. TV, p.r., and radio support.

Frito-Lay has done well with Go Snacks, bottles of mini chips that snackers can pour right into their mouths — or use the lid as a dish. FutureBrand Coleman designed the package, which lets adults keep their hands clean while eating salty snacks, and lets Frito parent PepsiCo distribute in vending machines. The line did so well that Frito postponed a potential national launch this year just to keep up with demand in test markets, Asher says.

Watch for more meals-on-the-go as marketers “tinker with products themselves to make them more portable,” suggests Asher. “The notion of letting people eat on the run will only get stronger.”

Pass the scissors.