This year we held three weeks of Idaho Potato samplings at 36 City Club stores across the country from July through September.
The objective of the activity was for people to know about the unique and delicious flavor of Idaho potatoes, how they are prepared, and to identify the “Grown in Idaho” seal as a guarantee that they are getting the highest quality and authentic Idaho potatoes.
During this month and a half, Idaho potatoes in frozen format in wavy and straight cuts were used for sampling days, reaching sales of more than 851 boxes of frozen potatoes, which are equal to more than $450k in sales, therefore obtaining an ROI of 41%.
For the October demos, an activation was held at City Club San Jeronimo with the presence of Paola Longoria, where a Meet and Greet took place with the athlete. Where the people had the opportunity to meet her, take pictures and sign autographs. This demo had around 50 attendees who were in the store for the event and a huge reach in networks due to the communication that Paola made on Instagram where she has more than 324,000 followers.
Six companies from the Western United States belonging to WUSATA, participated in ANTAD 2022, offering their products in the show’s American pavilion, meeting with self-service buyers with the aim of incorporating their products into the Mexican market. The attending companies were:
Imalinx oversaw assisting the American companies with the coordination of meetings with supermarkets, importers and distributors in the booth and outside of it, achieving the presence of more than 15 importers and supermarkets at the event.
This edition of ANTAD turned out to be effective, since our visiting companies from the Western United States were able to set up successful meetings with several buyers in search of new products.
A success story of a great opportunity for six Mexican buyers (Comercializadora Mexport, Casa Ley, Grupo Cimarron, Hanseatik, Good Express and Dualmex) where, through the support of WUSATA, they traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend the SIAL America’s first show edition and the Pizza Expo show with the objective of increasing their portfolio.
Our buyers had one-on-one meetings with more than 28 suppliers from the Western United States looking to enter the Mexican market. These meetings took place inside and outside the SIAL America show and they as well had the opportunity to visit 3 American supermarkets to learn more about products and current trends in the United States.
In November 2021, California Raisins sponsored the International Gourmet Festival in Vallarta. We were able to generate over 30 trade leads and have presence during the event with raisins and cheese boards in 2 of the participating restaurants during the opening as well as during the wine festival, with the participation of the best international and Mexican vineyards.
Costco and California Milk Advisory Board teamed up to promote the varieties of pizzas from Costco Service Deli in different key seasons along the year.
Children’s Day
The origin of the cheese was promoted during the celebration of Children’s Day from April 26 to May 2 promoting the varieties: italian, cheese and pepperoni.
During the promotion, a total of 9,208 units were sold nationwide, with an increase in sales of 3% for pepperoni pizza, 40% for Italian pizza and 166% for cheese pizza.
Accompanied by publications on Costco’s Facebook page that resulted in 226Kpeople reached. The paid advertising campaign in Real California Milk networks resulted in more than 500, 000 impressions.
LAUNCH OF BONELESS BUFFALO PIZZA
The promotion ran for almost a month to accompany the festivities in the Halloween season from October 27 to November 21, promoting three varieties of pizza: italian pizza, pepperoni and the launch of the new flavor boneless buffalo.
During the promotion, a total of 76,094 units were sold nationwide, with an increase in sales of 28% for pepperoni pizza, 31% for Italian pizza and with sales of 6,638 units of the new variety boneless buffalo.
On April 12 was the launch nationwide in Mexico of Bon bons ice cream, mini bites of vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate.
The launch was accompanied by the publication of a video on Costco’s social networks which had a reach of more than a million people, on the Real California Milk Facebook the boosted official video resulted in 780, 685 consumers reached and 1,458,149 total impressions.
In addition, a special influencers campaign was published with more than 70 proposals from Mexican influencers tasting the new product #BonBons. Total results: 54, 700 impressions.
After the launch of the vanilla ice cream dipped in dark chocolate BonBons in Mexico in April, Real California Milk and Costco decided to make a 25% discount nationwide by late summer.
The discount boosted sales and was a success, a return on investment of 219% was obtained with a total sale of 2,807. The promotion was valid from July 26 to August 2, 2021.
On behalf of the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association (WUSATA) and coordinated by Beto Lanz 15 companies participated in the first recipe program in Mexico with the main objective of promoting value-added food and beverage products in the Mexican gastronomic industry.
The chefs who participated were Chef Pablo Salas, from Amaranta Restaurant; Josefina Santa Cruz, from Sesame; Chuy Elizondo, from Benell; Oscar Herrera, from Flor de Nogal; and Bianca Castro, from Biscottis Bakery. The companies that participated in this first recipe program were Agropur, Northwest Hazelnuts, Farmer’s Rice, Fresh Nature Foods, Barber’s food, Limoneira, Smile Foods, Royal Ridge, Shining Ocean, Pure palms, Jacey Cakes, Colorado Potatoes, Traina Foods, Bow & Arrow and Sadaf Foods.
Each company selected one chef to received the ingredients . Among those products were surimi, dried apricots, hazelnuts, fresh green garbanzo beans, potatoes, and gouda cheese. Each product with a different flavor and origin.
The recipes developed were published on the Chefs’ social networks and reposted on the official WUSATA social media pages, resulting in + 2, 218, 290 people reached and 1, 028, 900 views.
As part of the “Taste of the West” campaign, and with the challenge to communicate where to buy the products to consumers Wusata had communication through Walmart and HEB channels.
The campaign was achieved through digital advertising in both chains, a Landing page was created with all the products from the promotion, also banners on website and offsite communication (materials through social media). There was a total of 1103% growth in visits compared to the season without promotion and more than 9,600 interactions with consumers on the banners.
At the end of this project, a digital recipe book was developed now available in: https://issuu.com/home/published/taste_of_the_west_original
WUSATA carried out a virtual trade mission between exporters from the Western Union States and importers from 5 Latin American countries. The objective was to generate new business relationships and mission was divided into 4 categories on 4 different dates:
18 companies from the Western Union States participated in the mission and 26 importers from different countries such as Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Panama and Dominican Republic were present. Each exporter had an average of 5 meetings, with a total of 106 meetings across the mission.
This activity was previously planned for a face-to-face trip to Costa Rica and Colombia but due to the restrictions of the pandemic we resorted to technology and offered the possibility of having private and group sessions. This new mode of business mission resulted efficiency and the possibility to target a greater number of contacts with previous and virtual agendas.