VegDeLite – Upscale Veggies With Heat-&-Eat Convenience

Satisfy a hankering for haute veggies without the fuss of buying large quantities or muss of slicing, dicing or chopping. Veg DeLite offers a unique selection of items such as asparagus tips, baby broccoli and purple snow peas packaged in a 6-ounce microwable bag ready to heat-and-eat in 90 seconds or less. The 8-item line, which launched in February, provides consumers with a healthy upscale alternative to the more ordinary veggies currently on the shelf.

“After watching bagged salads grow into a huge category with many different combinations, we saw an opportunity to help consumers eat both healthfully and deliciously during their lunch breaks and at dinner in an easy grab-and-go way,” says Dan Wahl, president of the Miami, FL-headquartered Growers Are Us and the former director of value added products for Rosemont Farms, which was acquired by Robinson Fresh in 2011.

Veg DeLite is available in 8 combinations: Snow Peas, Broccoli, Carrots & English Peas; Sugar Snaps & Carrots; Sugar Snaps, Broccoli & Carrots; Sugar Snaps, Carrots & English Peas; Purple Snow Peas & Sugar Snaps; Purple & Green Snow Peas; Asparagus Tips & Broccoli; and Asparagus Tips & Sugar Snaps. In addition, there are four single-item products: Snow Peas, Sugar Snaps, Purple Snow Peas, and Baby Broccoli. The company can create custom combinations based on retail request. Each product is dated with 21 days from when it was packed. Colorful packaging calls out calorie count and a QR code that links to more information on the company’s website, two points consumers identified as valuable during test demos at retail. Suggested retail price is $2.99 each or 2/$5 on sale.

Veg DeLite is a versatile product that can be merchandised in a number of ways. For example, displayed in the fresh-cut section of the supermarket produce department as a side dish solution for dinner. It can also be merchandised next to prepared salads in the produce department’s grab-and-go case or in the deli departments pre-made sandwich case as a side alternative to chips. Or, since the vegetables are prewashed and products like sugar snap peas and carrots are often enjoyed raw, the products can be cross-merchandised with veggie dips for snacking.

Growers Are Us is the marketing arm of several growers in Guatemala, Peru and Colombia who cultivate year-round the vegetables that go into Veg DeLite. The company’s fresh-cut processing facility, located outside of Antigua, Guatemala, is fully-equipped to handle processing and packaging and has necessary quality control and hygiene certifications, such as HAACP, BRC, Primus labs and other required by specific customers. The facility has ample chilling capacity to ensure that the product is cooled quickly and maintained in the cold chain very soon after harvest and throughout the whole process. 

For more information, call (305) 606-2675, Email: growersareus@gmail.com, or visit: www.veg-delite.com

Source: Perishable News.com