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May
23, 2005
By
STEPHANIE THOMPSON
If
Dorcas Reilly was paid a commission on every green-bean casserole
made in America since she helped create the recipe at Campbell
Soup Co. in 1955, she would be a very rich woman.
But
the ones who are cashing in are Campbell and Reckitt Benckiser,
transforming a simple dish into a marketing powerhouse. More
than 30 million consumers make a green-bean casserole every
holiday season.
The
holiday hallmark accounts for about $20 million of the $100
million annual sales of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup,
and makes up an eye-popping 80% of Reckitt Benckiser's $70
million French's French Fried Onions brand's sales during
crucial holiday time.
Recipe-pushing
is a major business for food marketers from Nestle to Kraft
Foods, which work tirelessly to develop the new ingredient
combinations that will become family favorites (and major
sales generators) for generations to come. Nestle has its
tollhouse cookies, Kellogg Co. its Rice Krispies treats, but
the green-bean casserole-half a century after it was first
touted on the AP wire- is clearly the holy grail.
"You
never know what a recipe will become, and every once in a
while you capture lightning in a bottle," said Alex Fried,
brand manager of French's, who was on hand with Ms. Reilly
to celebrate the dish's golden anniversary last week at Manhattan's
trendy TriBeCa comfort-food haven, Bubby's.
"Meeting
Dorcas Reilly is like meeting John Lennon," said Bubby's co-owner
Ron Silver. And, indeed, to the legions of food-company kitchen
staffers hoping to catch lightning, she is a rock star.
Cindy
Ayers, VP-Campbell's Kitchen, proudly wearing a necklace made
of miniature kitchen utensils, is the modern equivalent of
Ms. Reilly, Campbell's famed home economist. She is no slouch,
having herself helped develop the one-dish-chicken-and-rice-bake
recipe in the mid `90s that, according to the proprietary
"recipe-tracking process" she has championed, has the same
awareness and usage frequency as the green-bean casserole
(arguably Campbell's most-requested recipe ever). In addition,
from her days as a restaurant owner, Ms. Ayers determined
that Campbell's Swanson broth could be substituted for water
in almost any recipe, a catchall idea that has greatly contributed
to the dramatic double-digit sales of the brand in recent
years.
Every year, Campbell and French's separately push the green-bean-casserole
recipe via TV and print ads, Sunday inserts, in-store signage
and displays, Web sites and, of course, on their own packages
(where it is a fixture, based on serious complaints when at
points in the past it has been removed). Thousands of articles
featuring the recipe run in newspapers and magazines during
the holidays since "for many people, not having green-bean
casserole at Thanksgiving would be like not having turkey,"
said Barbara Yaros, director-marketing services for French's
Foods.
VARIATIONS FLOP
Reaching out to food editors is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
For 30 years, Family Features Editorial
Syndicate has helped, developing color features based
on food marketers' recipes for roughly 1,600 newspaper editors
and, more recently, for consumer Web site Culinary.net, which
receives an average of 75,000 hits
* a month.
Terry Bustamante, manager of
sales for Family Features, said the green-bean casserole is
unusual in that variations attempted over the years to modernize
the recipe have not been well-received. Most of the other
600 or so recipes it pushes annually on behalf of Kraft, Nestle,
Unilever and others have shifted over the years to reflect
new tastes.
For PepsiCo's Quaker brand, a good portion of sales come from
recipes such as the one for "vanishing" oatmeal cookies that
has long graced the cereal's inside lid, a company spokeswoman
said. These days, to capitalize on the whole-grain craze,
Quaker is suggesting oatmeal as an ingredient in meatloaf
and as a breading for chicken. French's is likewise still
trolling for on-trend recipes. With partner General Mills,
French's is backing "mashed-potatoes ole" made with its Cheddar
French Fried Onions and Betty Crocker's instant Roasted Garlic
Mashed Potatoes. It's a long shot, but they can always hope.
A lot of green...
Green-bean casserole
1955 Year the recipe was invented by home economist Dorcas
Reilly
30 million Number of consumers who make one each holiday season
$20 million Annual sales of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup
attributed to recipe
$56 Million Annual sales of French's French Fried Onions attributed
to the recipe
*
Should
read "unique visits"
Family
Features Editorial Syndicate, headquartered in Mission , KS
, was established in 1974 and is a leading producer and distributor
of syndicated food and lifestyle content for the national
media — including thousands of newspapers, magazines and online
outlets. Family Features' clients include the nation's top
food, beverage and lifestyle products manufacturers, commodity
boards and associations, and their advertising and public
relations agencies. For more information about Family Features,
please visit www.familyfeatures.com
or call 1-800-800-5579.
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