How Appetise worked with The Food Company to reduce price sensitivity of premium garlic
“Here's how the Food Company's premium chopped garlic held its ground against private label and mainstream brands, earning an 830% return on ad spend and staying in the basket 99% of the time.”
TLDR
- The Food Company's premium chopped garlic is the priciest option in the aisle, and needed proof that shoppers would trade up when given the chance.
- Placed as the named ingredient across 642 everyday dinner recipes, reaching 1,464 Australian households over six weeks.
- 830% return on ad spend against a 500% commitment, with 23% conversion on their lead SKU.
- The brand stayed in the basket 99% of the time, with fewer than 1 in 100 shoppers swapping it out.
The brand
The Food Company is a family-run Australian condiment maker, stocked in Woolworths and Coles. Their chopped garlic sits at the premium end of the herbs and spices aisle: bigger jar, better fill, and openly the priciest option on shelf. That's a deliberate position, built over two years on a good, better, best argument.
The gap
Premium brands in this category don't usually lose on quality. They lose on position. On shelf, the default wins: whatever's at eye level, whatever's cheapest, whatever the shopper reached for last time. To justify a premium price, a brand has to interrupt that habit, and interrupting habits is slow and expensive. Herbs and spices is a slow burn category, and the brand needed evidence that shoppers would actually trade up when given the chance.
The approach
We placed their garlic into everyday dinner recipes on Appetise, where it appeared as the named ingredient rather than one jar among twenty. Over six weeks, across 642 recipes, the brand reached 1,464 households in Australia. Shoppers could swap it out for anything else in the category at any point, including private label and the mainstream challenger brands.
