EDMONTON – In real estate, the key is location, location, location. But when it comes to selling new food products, the key is labels, labels, labels.
“Labels are everything,” said Gail Norton, owner of a cookbook and specialty food store in Calgary.
Thousands of dollars of expensive food are sold from her store simply because the buyer liked the label, she told a group of prospective food entrepreneurs.
The group was taking part in Alberta Agriculture’s Farm Business Development Specialists Taste of Success. The specialists help the group take their product from the kitchen or farmer’s market to stores.
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Norton said to be “brutally honest,” she doesn’t need another antipasto to sell in her store. What she’s looking for is something unique.
“I need something in my store that is distinctive,” said Norton who owns The Cookbook Company Cooks in Calgary.
In her store, people spend $28 for a small bottle of olive oil, $6 for a bottle of water in a vase or $8.50 for a bag of potato chips made out of different root vegetables.
Admire packaging
What all of these have in common is unique labeling that catches the shoppers’ attention. Some people even buy the fancy-bottled food just to sit on the counter as decoration.
But Norton warned the fancy label or bottle only hooks the customer once. What’s inside the bottle will keep them coming back for more.
Hurried Calgary cooks keep coming back to her store for jars of sauce that can be poured directly over chicken, in what Norton calls “bluff cooking.”
“You just open a jar and pour it over chicken. In 15 minutes you can get dinner to suit any of the snobby friends you have.”
When designing the label, it must project the desired image.
“There has to be a certain arrogance that goes along with selling something for $28.95 and no apologies.”
Norton encouraged the group to have a new food product every year.
“It gives people a reason to rebuy products every year.”
She also said it drives her crazy if she can’t reorder a product because there is no answering machine or fax machine.
“It loses its importance if I can’t reorder it right away.”
