A lush looking tomato, resting idly on a velvet cushion, while surrounded by barbed wire is not the kind of image you see every day in the fresh produce industry - which was exactly the point for Gomez when it launched its high profile premium Gomez Reserv brand onto the market.
Aimed at the non-multiple sector, Gomez Reserv aims to offer the best possible quality produce into an area which has traditionally suffered from the perception that it simply take the supermarket rejects.
“There has always been the perception the non-multiple market just takes the stuff the supermarkets don’t want,” says Gomez’s Steve Parmenter. “That it just wants substandard stuff. Jim [Parmenter, Gomez md] identified that this wasn’t the case, and thought there must be an opportunity to produce a range of products that were exceptionally high spec that could be supplied consistently at high volume.”
And in 2005, after a few years in the planning, Gomez Reserv was launched onto the sector, and has gone down a storm. The range includes eight lines of grapes, three of tomatoes, and one each of strawberries and plums.
Getting the scheme off the ground was far from simple however, as Gomez had to talk to suppliers to convince them that investing in growing an expensive, top-quality product, one which was aimed at a market which was traditionally seen as taking the opposite, was a gamble that was going to pay off. Of course, the fact the scheme offers excellent returns back to the grower was not going to hurt.
“We needed to get enough volume to be able to supply sensible amounts of gear,” says Steve. “It was a slight gamble, but we knew it would work.”
As one of the UK’s leading importers, the company was able to draw on its extensive network of high quality suppliers, which worked with Gomez to help make the concept a reality.
Detailed high quality specifications were developed for all the products in the range. “They are actually better specs in terms of quality than the supermarket specs,” he says. “Our specs are looking for larger sizes and higher sugar levels. On the grapes, we want much bigger berries and they have to be sweeter and juicier.
“It’s a difficult job for suppliers because they’re having to produce product that’s superior to anything going onto the UK market, but they do get the benefits of significantly higher returns.”
Having a good reputation in the industry also helps when you are looking for suppliers to help launch your brand. “Gomez is a well known company,” says Steve. “Growers know us and our reputation and we do have some big players on board. It would be a difficult exercise if you didn’t have access to such high quality growers.”
Of course, you can create the best possible specs and have the best possible product, but if the market does not know about it, then the exercise has been futile.
To ensure Gomez Reserv made the kind of splash such a concept required, the company did the opposite to what many businesses might choose to do - rather than hire in a flashy, high-concept agency, Gomez kept the work in-house and used its internal resources to dream up a campaign which not only ended up successfully launching Gomez Reserv, but also earned it the title of Re:fresh Marketing Campaign of the Year.
“We decided we had significant resources in-house and didn’t want to pay an over-priced agency - we didn’t want to get the same old stuff, with no imagination,” Steve says. “The best person to market a product is the one who’s selling it, as you’ll be fully behind it.”
A team was assembled and Gomez began to think about what kind of message it wanted to get across to support the brand. “We took a long time to think about it,” says Steve, “and there were several ideas. We did research in the non-multiple sector to see what they wanted. From that we came up with a final set of ideas and a strategy about how to promote it.”
The campaign was called “securing quality” and six different ads were created, all portraying produce in unusual, but secure environments.
“We had a tomato on a velvet cushion to depict how much care we take over the product, and then surrounded it with barbed wire to show the lengths we go to protect it.”
Other adverts feature oranges covered by a CCTV camera, grapes spilling out of a safe, and a security guard with a box of plums, all reinforcing the message of secure, high quality, valuable products.
The only outside help came with the recruitment of a local company to take the photographs for the advert, says Parmenter.
The adverts were used across trade press, consumer press, the internet and were also backed up with a PR offensive to raise the Gomez Reserv profile further. Further promotion was conducted directly with customers in the non-multiple sector, and flyers were used to promote the brand in the wholesale markets.
Specialist high-quality outlets in the markets were also targeted as potential customers and once the product was out there, word-of-mouth quickly began to spread.
“We were initially quite tentative, but it quickly became popular and we found ourselves struggling with the supply base, we got into a situation were demand had exceeded all our expectations. We did at least twice the amount of business than we had expected to do in the first year,” says Steve.
As a result, Gomez’s focus has shifted from looking to drum up more customers for the Gomez Reserv range, to finding suppliers who can supply the necessary high-spec products.
And that is already starting to pay off, says Steve: “We’re into our second season and we’re already seeing significantly more product coming from our existing sources in places like South Africa and South America. We’re getting two-to-three lorry loads a week of grape just from Spain alone.”
There are still large numbers of untapped customers out in the market, he says, and if Gomez can ramp up its supply, without sacrificing quality, there is plenty of room to continue to grow the brand.
While the company is keen to attract fresh supply and expand production among its current supply base, it is not sitting still on the range itself either, and is about to launch a new pre-packed addition to Gomez Reserv, Aranca-on-the-vine. “Other than strawberries, that’s the first product we’ve had pre-packed under the brand, and that will start in the summer,” Steve adds. “We’re working hard to develop new products all the time.” At the moment there are another five or six potential new products in the pipeline, he says.
Jim Parmenter adds: “The products have worked very well, but we’re committed to developing that.”
The range is also flexible, Steve says: “If there are companies out there that have their own requirements, as long as it fits with the philosophy of the brand, then we’re happy to listen.”
The company is also beginning to talk direct to some of the larger independent retail chains, but he says it is keen not to lead to a situation where the wholesale markets are cut out of the loop, which would be against the entire ethos of the brand. “The companies we have been talking to on that do not conflict, and we certainly wouldn’t be taking any business away from the markets.”
Overall, Gomez Reserv has been an outstanding success in just its first year, and it shows no signs of slowing down, says Steve. “The first year was intended to be about growth while the second year was going to be about consolidating that growth, but at the moment, it’s still all about growth. It will be interesting to see how long we can sustain that growth, as long as it is not detrimental to the product.”
The ultimate aim is to turn Gomez Reserv into a brand recognised by consumers, but he acknowledges that such an aim is very much in the long term. “There’s still a lot of growth to be gained purely by marketing the brand to the trade, and at the moment it would be silly to expand into the consumer sector when you’ve still got such growth in wholesale.”
And a strong marketing campaign is the key to maintaining that growth. “What we were trying to do was catch people’s eye, you don’t expect to see fruit in that context, and the message is quite clear.”
Winning Re:fresh was the icing on the cake. “Winning the marketing award in the first year really did show how much time and effort we put into the campaign. I think we won because we put the effort in,” says Steve.
Jim adds: “We were very pleased to have won the award, particularly as the work was all done in-house and we were up against some big names.
“I’m not really against agencies - I just think they’re expensive and not necessarily in the best interests of the product,” says Steve. “They might come up with something that looks alright, but they won’t have put a great deal of effort in and it won’t be that interesting.
“The adverts that are interesting are the ones that you remember.”
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