ORLANDO, Fla. — Flavor is a focus for the two new product lines that Apio debuted Oct. 19-20 at the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit.
The company spoke with booth visitors about its Chopped and Crumbled salads, an evolution of its line of superfood salads, and its new Ready to Wok stir fry kits. Both products just started shipping within the last couple of months, said Jenny Stornetta, senior marketing communications manager for Guadalupe, Calif.-based Apio.
There are four flavor profiles for the salad line — Sesame Crunch, Bistro Bacon, Mediterranean Crunch and Apple Gouda.
“What we’ve done is kind of taken what’s really great about our superfoods and put them in a new format because everything’s chopped up into bite-size pieces, and then we have a much higher proportion of toppings to vegetables, not only versus our other kits but versus all the other (kits),” Stornetta said. “The real intent there was to make sure that every time you took a bite you got toppings, enough toppings and enough salad dressing in every bite so that you got all the deliciousness through the entire eating experience.”
The company worked with outside culinary experts to develop the flavor profiles and followed that with consumer taste testing.
“We work in vegetables all the time, and we all have a different palate, we all have different flavors we like, but we tend to become a very specialized group of people who find deliciousness in all vegetables, so we want to make sure we take it to the everyday person who’s out there shopping and looking for new ways to eat their vegetables in a tasty and easy way, and so what we use the consumer taste-testing for is really to take the big idea — and sometimes they can be a little bit too culinary, they can be a little too high-flavor — and so we use that to kind of hone in on what makes each product special,” Stornetta said.
The options available in the Ready to Wok line are Teriyaki and Garlic Sesame.
“What’s really unique about these is they are the only kits in the fresh produce aisle that have yakisoba noodles inside,” Stornetta said. “It’s the vegetables, the noodles, a sauce and one topping.”