Metz, The Social Concept

Making Money In The Gourmet Food Industry With Social Media

January 20, 2010

There was one vertical market that was a real bright spot in the recession last year – gourmet food. Although the ’08-‘09 recession casualties included Gourmet Magazine and a handful of smaller gourmet food brands, overall, gourmet food (especially the types that are prepared at home), tend to do really well in a down economy.

Here’s a couple examples of how two Metz Consulting clients/prospects have seen real revenue in 2009, as a result of social customer management.

Melanie Yunk, CEO, Big Acres Gourmet Products : “We’ve acquired new consumer and wholesale customers via our social media
efforts. Most of our contacts occur when we’ve found people talking about
pertinent topics and we’ve joined the conversation and built relationships.
Our new food blogger friends, acquired via our social media efforts, are
invaluable and have helped drive lots of traffic to our website and products
too!”

Bliss Dake, VP of eCommerce/Ops, Mighty Leaf Tea : “We experienced positive feedback from fans and customers of ours to
promotions that we posted on Mighty Leaf’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
Instead of relying just upon traditional email marketing, we also used
social media tools and platforms to communicate relevant messaging and
promotions.”

In 2009, many big-name gourmet food brands began using social media and social customer management and there were some serious outcomes. A few examples include:

1. Gourmet Food Carts Driving Walk-Up Via Social Media

San Francisco’s Magic Curry Man and Los Angeles’ Kogi BBQ are two prime examples of how very small gourmet food brands have been using social platforms like Twitter and blogging as their primary outreach platforms. Sure, not every taco truck in America gets their message in front of 52,000 people per day like Kogi (or even 5000, like the Magic Curry Man), but these platforms are driving customers to their locations, every day.

2. Hundreds of small gourmet businesses use Social Marketing site Foodzie to sell product

What Etsy was to arts and crafts in 2009, Foodzie was for food. Although traffic hasn’t regularly climbed beyond the 60k/month range (1% of a typical month on Etsy), the site’s snazzy layout and social-media enabled shopping experience looks really promising. More background is on Foodzie is here .

3. Food Industry Publications & Trade Associations Jump on The Social Bandwagon

2009 was a watershed year for the food and beverage industry’s trade leadership, as associations like International Housewares Association (IHA) and National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) both launched robust social media toolsets, aimed at fostering conversation in their industry, and also influencing their brands to follow suit.

To really stay in tune with gourmet food trends, be sure to check out NASFT’s specialty food feed , and, of course, The Gourmet Retailer . Also, feel free to text METZ to 50500 to get invited to our consumer-packaged goods-oriented webinars.

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