Inside Loblaw’s glass-walled test kitchen, located in a sprawling four-storey building in Brampton, Ont., employees have been busy tweaking the recipes of thousands of President’s Choice (PC) products, from tiger tail ice cream to pasta sauce, for the past several years. The goal, first laid out by president and chairman Galen G. Weston back in 2012, is deceptively simple: replace artificial colours and flavours with natural ones. But according to Kathlyne Ross, head of product development and innovation at Loblaw, it was far from easy. Take, for example, the challenge of finding a natural way to give PC’s red-velvet cheesecake and ketchup chips their unnaturally crimson hues. “The ketchup chips were a tough one because people want to see red, red, ketchup,” Ross says. Most natural colouring agents, made from vegetables like beets or carrots, aren’t nearly as vibrant as their artificial counterparts. They also tend to be less shelf-stable, meaning they fade over time. “With the red-velvet cheesecake, lots of the iterations would fade to pink,” says Ross. “We asked ourselves, ‘Will customers be okay with a pink velvet?’ ”
Those questions are all part of an effort to overhaul one of Canada’s best-known store brands in an increasingly competitive retail grocery market. Where once Loblaw attempted to introduce people to new tastes and indulgences—PC “Memories of” peanut sauce, PC “Decadent” chocolate-chip cookies—it’s now more focused on having a “conversation” with consumers about PC products and their provenance. In addition to the use of more natural ingredients, expect to hear more about the Italian mill that makes pasta for PC’s black-label collection, or the potential uses of harissa, a North African spice blend. “We’re opening up and trying to engage consumers in a discussion about food and what’s happening in the food world,” says Ian Gordon, the senior vice-president of Loblaw Brands. Some of the conversations are expected to happen over social media channels, but the grocer is also engaging in more “content marketing”—articles and discussions about products (including an agreement signed with Rogers Communications Inc., owner of Maclean’s, that involves integrating PC into some Rogers-owned channels and publications).
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