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From The Spring 2005 Issue of Natural Grocery Buyer
Soyfoods move beyond soymilk
Manufacturers roll out more good-for-you products
Nancy Nachman-Hunt
 If there is a star in the dairy case right now, it is arguably soymilk. According to Information Resources Inc.’s data for 2004, the “soymilk and other milk substitutes” category grew 25.7 percent, tallying some $380.5 million in supermarket, drugstore and mass merchandiser sales.
While those numbers are impressive on their face, they also indicate, rather dramatically, soymilk’s acceptance by conventional supermarket consumers. Indeed, according to White Wave Foods, a unit of Dean Foods and maker of Silk soymilk, more than 12 percent of U.S. households have tried its signature product.
To say that soyfoods makers are pouncing on this trend may be an understatement. Now that many Americans are at least paying lip service to the idea of a healthy lifestyle, manufacturers believe that soy—sporting both an approved heart-health claim and a pending cancer-prevention claim from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—is poised to become the darling of the dairy case.
Here’s a brief rundown on some of the newcomers.
Nutrifull
Nutrifull is a refrigerated soy drink designed to burn calories and make consumers feel full longer, says Bob Jones, chief executive officer of Nutrifull maker VitaSoy USA. “These two attributes aren’t normally found in the same product,” he says.
Jones says VitaSoy’s new entry to the refrigerated soyfoods space combines soy and fruit juice “and a couple of components that we’ve applied for patents for.” It was developed as a result of consumer research done by the company that indicated demand for a healthy weight-loss drink.
VitaSoy USA expects to test market Nutrifull this spring in several retail chains on the East Coast. “We plan to test it in several locations in the store and to explore a couple of price points,” Jones says. The tests will be followed by a staged national rollout. Jones says VitaSoy currently is seeking retail collaborators in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
Silk Live, Silk Light
Parlaying its success with Silk soymilk, White Wave has launched Silk Live, a smoothie made of cultured soy and fruit, which the company says is designed to attract the 27 percent of U.S. consumers who make up the likely-to-buy-soyfoods category. Silk Live is aimed at the grab-and-go consumer. It’s available in strawberry, peach, raspberry and mango flavors, and boasts omega fatty acids, calcium and a raft of vitamins and minerals. Silk Live already is in nationwide distribution through such retailers as Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Shaw’s, A&P, Kroger and H.E.B. Ellen Feeney, communications manager at White Wave, says the new product is consistently selling out at natural foods retailer Whole Foods Market.
Silk Live also is available in convenience stores. According to Silk Brand Manager Bob Connolly, it’s currently being rolled out in the dairy cases of 2,300 7-Eleven stores in Colorado, Texas, Florida and the mid-Atlantic region.
Silk Light, White Wave’s other new refrigerator case offering, has 50 percent less fat and fewer calories than skim milk, according to the company. White Wave says it extracts the fat from the soybean without altering its chemistry, thereby retaining all the product’s soy-based health benefits. Silk Light is available in plain and vanilla flavors.
Smart Meals
Lightlife, ConAgra’s soyfoods unit, also has launched a convenience brand for the refrigerator case. Smart Meals are packaged in heat-and-eat pouches and come in both Tex-Mex and barbeque flavors. Lightlife, known for its meat substitutes, such as Tofu Pups, Smart Deli and Smart Bacon, developed Smart Meals to appeal to consumers with a yen for comfort foods.
“What we found is that a lot of people who are looking for vegetarian products also are looking for comfort food,” says Susan Rolnick, Lightlife’s marketing director.
Marketing soy
Soyfoods makers have differing opinions about how to present these new offerings—indeed, all refrigerated soyfoods offerings—to achieve their burgeoning sales potential.
White Wave’s Feeney says her company believes sales are optimized through integration with dairy products. “We’re for total integration,” she says. “It’s in the retail buyers’ best interest to have Silk in the dairy case. Consumers expect to see it there.”
Rolnick is not so sure integration fits all stores all the time. For conventional stores with a stronger-than-average natural foods customer base, she believes segregation can optimize both sales and awareness. “We’re in discussions with retailers right now to create a soy set with soymilk, soy cheese, soy meat substitutes and soy yogurts,” she says. “You couldn’t do it everywhere; it would have to be for the right demographic profile in the right store.”
Whatever their differences on presentation, soyfoods makers do agree that they’ve only just begun to innovate.
“The acceptance of soy is there,” says Rolnick. “Soymilk is only the point of entry.”
Nancy Nachman-Hunt is a freelance writer and editor in Boulder, Colo.
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