Summer Fresh

Source: Food and Drink Digital

Date :18/03/2008 06:18:54

Summer Fresh Salads is focusing on “fashion” food. It’s an idea that is proving rather successful for this Ontario based enterprise

Written by Megan Santosus and produced by John Bilodeau

The specialty food business may not be as prone to fads as other consumer industries, but it does change according to seasons and consumer tastes. For that reason, the people at Summer Fresh Salads Inc. trademarked the term ‘Food is Fashion’. The idea is that while some foods remain staples, others are much like accessories that compliment and accent a meal.

As a provider of salads, dips, soups and prepared meals, Summer Fresh Salads is as much in the accessory business as the food business. As such, one of the most prized characteristics of the Vaughn, Ontario, Canada based company is constant and continuous innovation.

“Constant innovation is what we are strong at,” says Leslie Gordon, business development manager for Summer Fresh Salads. “With products, packaging, finding new customers and developing new product lines, we are always finding new ways of doing things,” she says. Throughout the company, Gordon adds, there’s an unyielding sense that “what we did yesterday is not good enough today”.

That kind of philosophy was established at Summer Fresh Salads from the very beginning, when Susan Niczowski founded the company with her mother in 1991. At the time, the two women identified an underserved market need: Why should a restaurant be the only place consumers could get gourmet and specialty salads? Wouldn’t it be more convenient if consumers could buy fresh and enticing items at the deli department of their local supermarket? Soon after that epiphany, Summer Fresh set up production of a 3,000 square foot facility.

From that moment on, Summer Fresh Salads embarked on an upward growth trend.

Today, the company is still family-run but has expanded beyond its mom-and-pop origins to become a leading supplier of prepared foods in North America to retailers, caterers and restaurants in Canada and the Eastern United States. The company occupies a state-of-the-art 63,000 square foot manufacturing facility just north of Toronto that is capable of just-in-time production of fresh foods. The facility includes modern environmental control systems and is kosher and organically certified.

A rundown of some of Summer Fresh Salads’ products gives credence to its Food is Fashion philosophy. In addition to basic items such as potato salad and coleslaw, the company’s product offerings include more exotic and ethnic fare including cilantro tabouli salad, vegetable samosas, sundried tomato hummus, zucchini parmesan fritters and Italian wedding soup.

According to Gordon, the specialty food business includes dozens of players, with a few large companies competing with the likes of Summer Fresh Salads. For a company its size - about 150 employees, $50 million in revenues and a product line that numbers in the hundreds rather than thousands - constantly satisfying customers with new and different products is a must, and the company is not afraid to abandon items that don’t resonate with consumers. Products are continually introduced every quarter, and those that don’t sell well are discontinued. “We constantly conduct sales analyses by customer based on volume and dollar,” Gordon says.

Currently, the specialty foods industry as a whole is facing rising costs for raw materials, packaging, and transportation and distribution, and small independent companies are more vulnerable to such volatile conditions. Still, Summer Fresh Salads remains committed to investing in research and development as a way to differentiate itself in a crowded market that is ruled by the vagaries of consumers. “R&D is a main focus of ours,” Gordon says. “We are always working on that because we believe in innovation.”

Despite the frequent churn of products, Gordon says that the workforce has remained relatively stable with low turnover. With an environment described as fast-paced and collaborative, Gordon says that training is emphasized, and the company strives to promote from within whenever possible “It’s an interesting culture,” says Gordon, who herself has been at Summer Fresh Salads for nine years. “Those that do well tend to stay.” And the company’s team-based focus encourages employees to participate in high-level decisions.

As business development manager, Gordon is involved in every facet of sales and marketing including costing and pricing activities as well as product promotions. “We try to maximize our marketing dollars as much as possible through grass-roots community types of marketing activities,” Gordon says. In addition to coupons and in-store demonstrations, Summer Fresh Salads participates in many product giveaways.

“By allowing the customer to try the product first, we think they’re likely to buy it the next time they shop,” Gordon says.

The Summer Fresh Salads website also extends its marketing reach by encouraging consumers to interact with the company. Online, consumers can find recipes, seasonal articles about meal and party planning, a newsletter sign-up, and the opportunity to email questions to the Summer Fresh Salads chef.

Although the manufacturing facility is high-tech and state-of-the art, Summer Fresh isn’t on the cutting edge in terms of information technology.

The company does not rely on business intelligence software to analyze sales trends, nor has it invested in an off-the-shelf enterprise resource management package to coordinate sales and manufacturing functions. The company is working with a software vendor that Gordon does not want to identify to develop a proprietary software system to unify various departments including sales and production. To help plan production, Summer Fresh Salads works closely with its customers - both distributors and retailers - to forecast demand for products.

As Summer Fresh Salads continues to commit resources to R&D, it certainly aims to continue on its upward growth trajectory.

To date, the company has compiled an impressive track record of accolades from the Canadian business community, garnering recognition for its management and profit growth. With North American consumers growing increasingly health-conscious and clamoring for fresh food, Summer Fresh Salads is certainly in a position to keep expanding.