Goodbye curry night, hello naan tacos: how Flavour Makers became a dinner staple in a declining category
“Indian is a tough category in Australia right now, so we needed shoppers to find butter chicken somewhere other than the usual curry night. Seeing our sauce turn up in naan tacos and a korma pie, and actually get shopped, told us the recipe route works.”
Heath Dickson, Head of Marketing, Flavour Makers
TLDR
- Indian is a declining category in Australia, so Flavour Makers needed a new way in
- They worked with the Appetise team to put their product range in new meal occasions, like naan tacos
- The results were a resounding success: 406 shops against 8 swap-out events
- Creative in-roads to the consumer, not traditional ones, proved to drive growth for the brand
The challenge
Indian food in Australia has a penetration problem, not a positioning one. The category's been going backwards, and getting more households cooking it more often (not fighting over the same slice) was always going to be the fix. Flavour Makers, the team behind Passage to India, Passage to Asia and Street Kitchen (ranged nationally through Woolworths and Coles) picked butter chicken, the country's number one Indian flavour, to prove it. Winter time was the window.
The strategy
We stopped putting the range where shoppers expected it. Passage to India and Passage to Asia landed in 32 recipes across winter, which were deliberately clear of the default curry-and-rice occasion. Butter chicken went into naan tacos. Korma became a one-pan pie. Teriyaki turned up in a drumstick tray bake. The logic: someone searching for an Indian or Asian dinner isn't looking for the version they already make, they're looking for a new way in, in terms of inspiration.
What the data showed
Across 1 May - 28 August, Appetise data showed:
- 1,023 product appearances across 32 recipes, reaching 808 households
- 406 product shops against 8 swap-out events. The range held its place in the basket almost every time it appeared
- Passage to Asia Teriyaki Chicken 200g converted at 73% (178 appearances → 130 shops), the strongest-converting SKU in the range
- Passage to India Extra Mild Butter Chicken converted at 55%
- Butter Chicken Naan Tacos was the most-shopped recipe of the period: 255 recipe shops, 43% capture rate
- One Pan Chicken Korma Pie posted the highest capture rate of the top five, at 44%.
The takeaway
The recipes that worked hardest for the brand weren't the ones the category expects. A taco and a pie outperformed anything traditional, which is proof that Indian penetration doesn't come from a better spot on shelf, but a better reason to embed it into meal planning in a creative way. Sometimes the shortest route to the dinner table is the one nobody's tried yet.
The wrap-up
"Indian is a tough category in Australia right now, so we needed shoppers to find butter chicken somewhere other than the usual curry night. Seeing our sauce turn up in naan tacos and a korma pie, and actually get shopped, told us the recipe route works." – Heath Dickson, Flavour Makers.
