The Condiment Marketing Co. has had the great privilege of working with Food & Drink Resources (FDR) for the last couple years to manage most all of the company’s marketing needs. FDR develops menus for national restaurants, represents major food manufacturers, and completes consumer research at its Denver-based market research facility.

FDR is busy, and they keep our marketing team busy, too. 

FDR’s Marketing Challenges

Many businesses struggle to manage multiple marketing vendors — web developer, graphic designer, PR agency, and so on  — and FDR was no different. They were looking for one shop to take the lead on all of their marketing with little oversight. Bottom line: Richard Keys and Scott Randolph, the Head Chefs and Co-Founders at FDR, wanted to continue to grow their business but get marketing off of their plate so they could spend time in the kitchen.

Right away, The Condiment Marketing Co. worked to identify marketing goals. There were several items on the list, but the biggest marketing need surrounded the new FDR Innovation Center, their facility in Denver where taste tests and focus groups are conducted.

At the time, FDR was relatively new to Denver, and the chefs were eager to have folks understand the company’s full capabilities, especially menu development and market research. In their experience, few recipe developers test their recipes, and few researchers have a culinary facility that meets the needs of a multi-location restaurant. FDR had created a line of services and a facility to do it all, and they wanted the world to know.

clt booths and kitchen at FDR

At the FDR Innovation Center in Denver: CLT booths in the foreground and the test bar and commercial test kitchen in the background.

 

Marketing Solutions

With a primary goal to further awareness of the FDR Innovation Center, we set out to reach FDR’s audience through social media, email newsletters, a search engine presence, and media coverage. This was no small task, and over the years we’ve implemented a variety of marketing tactics including an open house at the FDR Innovation Center, ebooks, press releases, the upcoming FDR Golf Outing, and more. But one marketing effort has continued to stand out among the rest: food trend PR outreach.

Many members of the food media are hungry for fresh takes on ingredients and what new items consumers can expect to see on menus soon. Put simply, the food world wants to know about food and beverage trends. Who better to share their insights than the chefs who are developing next year’s trends right now? 

Marketing Results

On behalf of FDR, we frequently reach out to the media to announce the FDR team’s prediction for upcoming menu trends. It’s FDR’s goal to become a resource for restaurant chefs and other food industry influencers interested identifying what’s hot and what’s not.

Additionally, we work with FDR to develop website content covering trends. The FDR blog now has dozens of posts covering food/beverage trends. To support content both on and off the FDR website, The Condiment Marketing Co. team will take food photos and create custom images to further illustrate the food trends. The GIFs below, which were created in conjunction with yellowDogLab in Denver, are the most recent set of creative.

This gif made to support a blog post on the housemade ingredients trend.

food marketing case study

This gif made to support a blog post on the African flavor trend.

All of the food trend content and PR outreach has resulted in a number of things for FDR, including nearly two dozen online mentions and links and a 25% increase in website traffic. We track that data using Google Analytics, and we anticipate those numbers will continue to grow as we develop more content and work with more food media and bloggers again to discuss 2018 food trends.

To learn more about FD visit foodanddrinkresources.com.

Sara Lancaster

About Sara Lancaster

Sara is The Condiment Marketing Co.’s founder and creative director. She oversees client relationships, strategic marketing plans, as well as a bit of copywriting and social media management.