You're Not Hallucinating— Hemp Is A Prime Ingredient

Don't tell Cheech & Chong, but hemp is one of the healthy constituents that French Meadow Bakery is using to build its organic product line to drive growth and sales.

Oct 6, 2008

-By Becky Ebenkamp

Chris Steinmetz and his 9-year-old son are having "That talk," only it's not going the way most parents rehearse it. "Dad, are you going to talk about hemp . . . AGAIN!?"

And Steinmetz the elder isn't even lecturing about the evils of how hemp can be cultivated and turned into hallucinogenic products such as hashish and marijuana. Instead, his focus is on all the wonderful uses of hemp. As the managing director at organic outfit French Meadow Bakery, Steinmetz is aiming to appeal to more than the crunchy granola crowd. Hemp has increasingly become a key ingredient as French Meadow—whose lines include bread, rolls, bagels, tortillas, gluten-free products for people with dietary restrictions and performance-based products for athletes—expands its products to reach beyond the organic category and appeal to more consumer segments within the mainstream market.

Lynn Gordon, who was on a macrobiotic diet, opened French Meadow Bakery and Cafe in 1985. It now bills itself as "the longest continuously running certified organic bakery in the country." In 2006, French Meadow was acquired by Rich Products, Buffalo, N.Y., where Steinmetz was managing director-new ventures group. (Gordon retained the Cafe side of her business.) The portfolio at Rich, which does more than $2.5 billion in annual sales, was driven by appetizers, barbeque and deep-fried seafood offerings. But the company wanted to expand its consumer base by moving into organic foods.

"Nothing that Rich does is healthy for you," Steinmetz jested. "We had to innovate outside of our core business. French Meadow became the cornerstone of our health-and-wellness strategy."

However, Rich wanted the brand to go beyond the generic organic pitch. "Everyone who goes into a Whole Foods goes in for a different reason," said Chris Heile, vp-marketing and advertising at hyperQUAKE, Cincinnati, the brand design agency that helped French Meadow reposition its products. "Some are heavily informed and really committed to this lifestyle. Others are more casual consumers who know this is something they should be doing for themselves and not quite sure what they should be doing. There are athletes who want high protein to enhance their output, and others have a physical need for [special] foods, [because] they have celiac disease." Heile said the philosophy came down to this: "[Most brands] just talk to people because they want 'organic.' We wanted to build a brand that spoke to consumers in a more sophisticated way."

Four archtypes were identified: committed consumers, performance/athletes, casual consumers and beginners. Each got a customized campaign that drove everything from product development and package design to distribution, event outreach and communications.

"Segmentation is always a smart idea because it allows you to get more bang out of your marketing dollar to focus a specific message on a specific customer," said Kevin Coupe, founder/editor at MorningNewsBeat.com, a food industry newsletter. "And now with the current economic situation, people are paying more attention to price. If a $7 bread makes me a better marathon runner, I might see the value of that bread."

The strategy appears to be working. Sales at French Meadow are expected to double from 2007 to an estimated $20 million in 2009, said Steinmetz, thanks to new products, marketing and distribution.

A Web site redesign includes video podcasts and forums for consumer groups such as people with celiac disease who must have a gluten-free diet. The brand is also busy making friends at Facebook and MySpace. Here, too, the company has seen success: Online sales are up 30%, while Web traffic has risen 150%.

Regarding that father-son talk, Steinmetz might quote French Meadow's Web site, which calls hemp "an amazing resource, often considered one of nature's most perfect plants. Packed with protein, fiber and amino acids

. . . the industrial hemp plant is abundant and environmentally sustainable, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to flourish." Because of this, "there's a lot of opportunity among young people, and at colleges," said Heile.

In fact, HempMunchies.com will soon redirect users to FrenchMeadow.com.