Consumers are searching for good quality convenience food without sacrificing taste and flavour for speed. In recent years, Cartel Food Co has also seen many new entries into the frozen category, particularly with an ethnic twist. This is driven a lot by consumers' habits changing during and after COVID-19.
Supermarkets are observing a new trend of ‘fakeaways’, that is, takeaways consumers have at home as they become more price-conscious and choose to eat at home, and Cartel Food Co. caters to all of the above with their Mexican offerings at an affordable price.
“We have stayed true to our values. We make authentic-tasting frozen Mexican food. We don’t cut corners with our production and ingredients. Our decisions are based on taste and quality,” said CEO Melissa Philips.
“We consider the final customer experience with all our production and manufacturing decisions. That is particularly hard to do in a time of inflationary pressure. It can be very tempting as a producer to lower food costs by buying lesser-quality ingredients, spending less on labour, etc.”
The company’s biggest challenge is to get consumers to try the brand. They continue to focus on educating consumers that there is good quality food in the freezer and find a need to have good supermarket placements and promotions to drive product trials.
The subcategories in the supermarket's frozen and chilled sections usually offer similar and boring options like lasagnas and macaroni cheese, unlike those in the US and the UK, which provide good quality, different-tasting ethnic options for the consumer.
“I don’t just mean the end-user consumers. Talk to your stores about what trends they are seeing and read industry magazines like yours for valuable insights.”
Although listening and talking to customers seems a bit cliche, Philips believes it is essential. Adapting to trends is a balance of timing, resources and sales performance.
