Tropical Sun has over 250 world food products in its portfolio covering multiple categories across its African, Caribbean and International offering. The guiding principles binding the entire range together are its commitment to delivering authenticity, and high quality ingredients. The brand’s product development team relentlessly scours the globe to bring unique new flavour experiences to UK consumers, just as they are enjoyed in local communities across the tropics. Along with this, the brand has earned impressive credentials in the high-quality department, having achieved Great Taste Awards for its Guava Jelly, Crunchy Coconut Peanuts and its Traditional Jerk Seasoning.
“Our entire range of sauces is free from artificial colours, additives and preservatives and almost our entire range of Tropical Sun seasonings is free from MSG, fillers and bulking agents. Over the past few years we have reaffirmed our commitment to maintaining a very high standard and eliminated unnecessary ‘nasties’ in all of our products. This is to ensure that when a shopper chooses a Tropical Sun product, they can be confident that authenticity and quality are assured,” said Jag Singh, brand manager at Tropical Sun.
Caribbean food and drink in particular offers a great opportunity for retailers looking to create a vibrant world foods category that is performing exceptionally well and growing at 15%* yoy. There is still massive untapped potential for foods from the region, continues Singh.
“Growth in Caribbean food has largely come from greater awareness and easy-access products such as sauces and drinks. However, with a growth in sales of ethnic ingredients at 7.5%**, we are continuing to invest in educating people about the authentic Caribbean food experience. We have over 60 recipes on our website with a mixture of simple and more complicated meal ideas for consumers to try, as well as many easy-to-follow videos which demonstrate traditional as well as fusion Caribbean recipes.
Innovation:
Tropical Sun has enjoyed phenomenal success, growing consistently and organically at 20% year-on-year. The brand has committed to making 2013 its biggest year for NPD and innovation. With a growing importance on retail ready packaging and SKU sizes, the brand is working with its customers to make the world foods category as accessible and convenient for shoppers as possible.
Additionally, the brand is continuing to develop on-trend products, which respond directly to consumer demands. Consumers are becoming more and more interested in the quality of ingredients and are seeking out authentic, high quality products. One of Tropical Sun’s latest launches is Rub Rub, a range of four unique gourmet quality seasonings, which have been introduced to help effortlessly infuse a more intense level of flavour to a variety of everyday foods. Instead of a powdery consistency generally found in seasonings, the larger grains allow consumers to imbed granules directly into a variety of meats, to slowly release flavour whilst cooking to tropicalise their meal. The range includes a Gourmet Rub Rub chicken, meat, fish and a hot variant.
Marketing
Tropical Sun recently launched an innovative online engagement campaign, which featured a free vending machine that sampled thousands of products from a selection of its best-selling lines. The campaign achieved massive online exposure from consumers, with even bigger brand support planned for later this year, promised Singh.
“We are gearing up for another huge consumer awareness activity, making 2013 our biggest marketing investment ever. We will be engaging consumers on and offline, to ensure that they actively seek out our products in-store. History tells us that once people do choose to ‘tropicalise’ their food with one of our products, they always come back for more”.
* IRI 2012
** Kantar 2012
Tropical Sun Foods
Tel: 020 8988
Email: ray@tropicalsunfoods.com
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