From Our Print Edition

Women bring unique perspectives (duh!) to what motivates the women shoppers who drive purchases of healthy and plant-based products. Here are key insights from an upstart women-managed and women-led manufacturer

For unique insights retailers can use to sell more ‘healthy’ products, I interviewed Julia Stamberger, CEO and co-founder, and Mara Ebert, chief
sales officer of The Planting Hope Company (planting
hopecompany.com), Chicago. The company — which just completed an initial public offering — develops and launches plant-based and planet-friendly food and beverage brands. Focusing on nutrition, sustainability and representation, it recently launched Hope and Sesame sesame milk, the world’s first commercialized sesame milk.

How can retailers sell more ‘healthy’ foods, more profitably?

Ebert: Change comes incrementally, and it’s key for retailers to help consumers make transitions to better-for-you products. For example, 74% of households now use both dairy and plant-based milks rather than just one or the other, according to research by the Plant Based Foods Association this past April.

Julia Stamberger

‘If consumers just scan the front of the package and don’t read the nutritional panel, they may think they are getting a healthier choice that is also better for the planet. But some plant-based foods aren’t any healthier than potato chips.’

Stamberger: In transitions like these, it’s not just about putting new and healthy products on the shelf, but about using shelf talkers and education programs to teach consumers about the products’ nutrition, sustainability and other benefits. Shoppers increasingly like exploring new and different foods, and they want to make better choices for themselves and their families.

Yet while some “healthy” shoppers are knowledgeable and dialed-in, most are looking to the packaging and to the retailer to help guide them. Unfortunately, because of greenwashing, packaging can give the impression that products are healthier than they are.

If consumers just scan the front of the package and don’t read the nutritional panel, they may think they are getting a healthier choice that is also better for the planet. But some plant-based foods aren’t any healthier than potato chips. Retailers don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Small but impactful changes go a long way.

Recipes and showing alternative uses for products drive sales — especially for newer products that shoppers aren’t yet very familiar with. It sounds simple, but suggesting ideas helps — “This product is good not only for drinking but for recipes as well as in your favorite coffee or tea drink.” You should always be thinking about new ideas to expand usage and consumption. Tout product attributes, rather than making shoppers read all the way down labels.

Ebert: We’ve also found that in plant-based milk sets, roughly 30% of SKUs generate 80% of the volume. So why are there 80 or 100 SKUs? Few shoppers have time to sort through all that repetition. But with so many people using Instacart or buying online, retailers have lots of opportunities to use apps to communicate attributes and benefits to consumers.

You’re a woman-owned company, and your senior management team is made up entirely of women. You’ve said that’s important to your corporate strategy. Why?

Stamberger: Because women are the ones guiding decision-making in the supermarket, especially when it comes to choosing plant-based and sustainable items. We relate at all levels. Women throughout the household are bringing in new products and educating family members. We’ve long heard men saying that they drink plant-based milks because their wives buy it. But now children, both young and grown, are major influencers also.

This is not to say that a lot of men aren’t very engaged in plant-based, fitness and health. But typically, women have been more conscious in making healthier choices in feeding the family and themselves. As we see a growing incidence of food allergies and health-related issues, women have been more focused on how to adapt household eating choices to match what family members need.

Ebert: Nothing is more seminal in impacting change than bringing children into a household. You start questioning everything about health and nutrition. When a group of us at the company are talking to women in households to gain insights, we get a true and unique perspective on what’s important and why it resonates. It gives us a better understanding of what consumers are looking for.

How does this affect your work with retailers?

Stamberger: Category trends may be too new to be captured fully in data, especially if the retailer wants to be on the cutting edge. So it helps to combine both the science of data and the art of future trends.

Our consumer research helps us highlight nutritious items that consumers actually want. We’ve learned how consumers will pay extra for certain products. During a recession, the last thing to go is spending on food. During COVID, people have bought food for both comfort and wellness.

With a strong understanding of how food benefits people, retailers can highlight healthy choices and consumers will respond. On top of that, healthier foods are generally higher in margin and penny profit for the category.

Mara Ebert

‘Nothing is more seminal in impacting change than bringing children into a household. You start questioning everything about health and nutrition. When we talk to women to gain insights, we get a unique perspective on what resonates.’

Sustainability is getting greater attention.

Ebert: It is. There’s confusion about what it means on both the retailer and the consumer side. It can be difficult for retailers to know what shoppers are looking for in terms of sustainability, and how to apply that to assortment. This varies by region. On the West Coast where there are drought conditions, sustainability can focus on water. In other parts of the country, sustainability may focus on bees. It’s incumbent on retailers to own this, and to communicate important facts to help drive appropriate behavior.

Bees? Can you elaborate on that?

Stamberger: Bees are so important to all agriculture. They’re critical to almond farming, for example, since the trees have to be pollinated in a particular six- to eight-week cycle. A truckload of bees may be shipped out to California but about 30% of them die because of stress, and because of pesticides in the groves. Crops such as sesame and oats pollinate without bees, as they wind-pollinate. Protecting bees is crucial to sustainability and the food supply.

Let’s talk about sustainable packaging.

Stamberger: There’s a strange disconnect in the United States versus most of the rest of the world — including Canada — about which products can be merchandised in refrigerated cases and which can’t be. For example, we have both shelf-stable and refrigerated milk. Our shelf-stable aseptic packs don’t get put in the refrigerated case. Shoppers buy the aseptic packs and take them home, but don’t put them in their refrigerators until they’re about to be used. And their shelf life is longer. 

But since most milk is sold in the dairy case, we had to create an entirely different line with different packaging for it to be sold where shoppers expect to find it. This is an enormous waste of environmental resources. Especially since water and soft drinks are sold in the same packaging in both the dairy case and on the grocery shelf.

The PET bottles everyone is using are not recyclable, as you generally have to remove the labels first. But Tetrapak is recyclable. This policy creates a large problem for the environment for no good and defensible reason.