How Tatua Mascarpone became a weeknight dinner staple with Appetise

Tatua is a New Zealand dairy co-operative based in the Waikato. Its retail range includes mascarpone, sour cream and cooking cream, sold through New Zealand supermarkets.

Most shoppers think of mascarpone as a dessert ingredient. They buy it for tiramisu and don't think of it again until the next dinner party. Tatua wanted home cooks to reach for it on a weeknight, the way they already reach for cream cheese.

Tatua also had no shopper data of its own. The team wanted to see what really happens when someone puts mascarpone in the basket, and whether they keep it there.

We put Tatua Mascarpone into shoppable recipes built around everyday meals, not desserts. These included a creamy mushroom tagliatelle, a bacon, thyme and lemon version of the same dish, spinach and tomato stuffed chicken, and savoury tarts with caramelised onion and roast beetroot. A few desserts, such as tiramisu brownies, stayed in the mix. New Zealand households saw these recipes while planning the week's dinners, then sent the ingredients straight to their supermarket shop.

- 48% conversion: nearly half the times Tatua Mascarpone appeared in a recipe, shoppers bought it.

- 75% of mascarpone recipe shops were savoury meals. Shoppers are buying mascarpone for dinner, not just for dessert.

- 96% capture on savoury recipes: when a shopper picked a savoury mascarpone recipe, Tatua was in their completed shop.

- 92% and 100% capture on the two tagliatelle recipes, the strongest performers.

- Zero swap-outs: no shopper replaced Tatua Mascarpone with another brand.

Shoppers didn't need convincing that mascarpone is a high-quality ingredient. They needed to see it in a dinner that they already wanted to cook. Once it was there, they bought it and kept it in the basket. A dessert staple turned into a weeknight staple.