Position salad kits as meals, not just a side dish, to grab more register rings.

Salad kits are gaining popularity as easy meals and meal components at a time when many consumers are looking for convenient ways to eat healthier. Salad kits are also one advantage food retailers can promote, potentially winning back dollars lost to delivery windows.

At Saker ShopRite, Homdel, NJ, salad kits and packaged salads feed a consumer demand for convenience. The Saker ShopRite, which recently opened in South Plainfield, NJ, pulls together different fresh and prepared departments so consumers can readily assemble meals of every kind.

Richard Saker, president of Saker ShopRite, says, despite inflation, many people have more money than time. With two-income households, parents, and especially their kids, have made convenience foods a part of their lifestyles. It’s not that meals aren’t always cooked. Rather, households consider convenience, nutrition, cost and enjoyment across multiple meals, with prepared foods such as salad kits a significant component in each week’s eating.

“Everything is in a bag,” he says. “This is all part of the prepared food generation.”

Saker ShopRite has separate displays of bagged and clamshell salad kits and other packaged sales integrated distinctly with the produce and other products. The clamshell display mixes in olive oil and cooking tools and incorporates fresh-cut meal components and baked goods, so from one point on the sales floor, consumers can put together any number of meals in their minds.

CATEGORY STILL GROWING

Salad kits are getting more recognition for their several advantages. For example, Taylor Farms Mini Chopped Salad Kits won recognition from the 2024 Mindful Awards as Overall Food Product of the Year. The awards highlight companies that offer healthier choices with an environmental and social consciousness in mind.

Taylor’s Mini Chopped Salads launched last year in response to demand from consumers for new, fresh and flavorful chopped salad kit options. The single-serve salads come in Caesar, Citrus Crunch, Green Goddess, Nashville Hot and Pizza Ranch varieties.

“The entire category of value-add salads is continuing to grow, with chopped salad kits leading the way with double-digit growth, as of the latest 26 weeks retailer data ending 6/16/24 according to Circana IRI data,” says Charis Neves, director, innovation product management, Taylor Farms, Salinas, CA. “Chopped salad kits offer consumers restaurant-inspired salads in a variety of flavors and textures with maximum ‘forkability.’ ”

Convenience is a key factor in this growth, as consumers look for ways to save time and prep during mealtime.

Aaron Lavin, senior category manager, Fresh Express, Salinas, CA, says salad kits, including bags and bowls, remain a popular option for consumers and the largest segment of value-added salads.

In the past 52 weeks, salad kits represented 41% of dollars versus 36% in 2019 and 37% of units versus 31% in 2019 in the category. Lavin adds that chopped kits continue to experience both dollar, at 7%, and unit, at 9%, growth over the past 52 weeks, due in part to consumers using kits as a meal with protein or as a side with a meal.

In citing Circana CSIA as a data source for 52 weeks ending May 19 for all outlets, he says that value-added salads “continue to be extremely popular across age and demographic lines, with over 84% of all households purchasing annually.” The stats found households that purchase the category at a higher level are born between 1946 to 1980, live in households of more than two people, have older children — 12-17 years — and are more educated, he adds.

NOT JUST GREENS

Tim Kwan, vice president of sales, Group Bonduelle, Irwindale, CA, says innovation in the salad category over the past couple of decades has helped consumers accommodate their desires for healthy eating and also their desire for flavor. The company’s kale salad, for example, made a superfood more appetizing with poppyseed dressing.

However, today, much of the prepared salad business has become commoditized, he says, with pressure coming partially from an increase in private label products in the market. He notes, however, that innovation is driving the salad kit category, using the example of Bonduelle’s bistro bowls. The company now offers Ready Pac Bistro Loaded bowls, such as a chicken and guacamole pairing with romaine lettuce, red cabbage, grilled white meat chicken, black beans, fire roasted corn, four-cheese blend, red peppers, jalapeños and tortilla strips, as well as a chipotle honey vinaigrette.

“We want convenience, we want healthy eating, and we want proteins, and we want it readily available — products making things that are healthy and functional taste great and delicious,” Kwan says.

Greenhouse grower Little Leaf Farms, Devens, MA, offers seven salad SKUs, as well as two salad kits in its product lineup, a Caesar and a Southwest. Another salad kit, a Sesame Ginger, will debut in the fall.

Chris Hill, the brand’s Chief Revenue Officer, says the pandemic gave salads kits “a shot in the arm.”

Pre-pandemic, restaurants were in a constant cycle of turning, developing and rolling out new salads. When people weren’t able to dine out much because of the pandemic, salad kits became a way to get the kind of restaurant quality dishes they favored.

Hill says Little Leaf, as a CEA grower, can provide particular quality, freshness and consistency. Little Leaf didn’t have salad kits initially, then as it started looking into extending its salad business, the company realized that Little Leaf customers already were purchasing kits. So, introducing salad kits was a natural progression.

“The approach we’re taking is the same as the big players where we partner with the retailers who build the right programs in merchandising and digital engagement because it’s all about building trial, and when you can get a consumer to try, they tend to stay,” Hill says.

From the perspective of presentation, retailers who merchandise salad kits with add-on items, which allow consumers to personalize the products they favor, can make them more enticing, while getting added rings.

“We execute things like that in multiple ways,” he says. “Consumers want convenience, they want high quality. Those are the dynamics that are improving the kit sector. Our customers now can get higher quality lettuce with our higher quality ingredients and actually help grow the retailer’s category.”

INNOVATION AND TRENDS

Hill identifies three key kit categories that offer significant opportunity: bagged salad kits, chopped kits and single-serve bowls. Little Leaf has its own variation on the last.

“Little Leaf’s innovation has been to bring a clamshell kit in the CEA format to the bagged kits segments. It can be used as a single serve or a meal at home,” Hill says.

Dole salad kits also got a sales boost during the pandemic, says Bil Goldfield, director of corporate communications, Dole Food Co., Charlotte, NC, as more consumers in the United States looked for “quick, healthy, convenient and readily accessible meal options.”

Although much of this volume has leveled off, salad kits sales are still tracking above pre-pandemic levels, Goldfield says. “We’ve also seen an increase in sales related to new flavor varieties, especially in our Dole Chopped! Salad Kits line. While inflation and higher prices affect all food categories, packaged salad kits and mixes have shown more resilience to the negative sales impact of inflation and are still considered a value by Americans relative to other categories.”

Taylor Farms’ Neves says consumers are on the lookout for convenient meal solutions across multiple day parts.

“When it comes to chopped kits, Taylor Farms offers multi-serve kits perfect for dinner as well as single-serve mini salad kits excellent as a midday snack or side salad for lunch,” Neves says. “Each kit contains chopped salad veggies, dressing and an array of toppings such as croutons, cheese or nuts.”

Taylor Farms’ Earthbound Farm offers smaller single-sized organic salad kits that Neves says are “excellent for lunchtime, snacks or for a lighter dinner salad and are made with organic, clean ingredients and organic avocado oil dressings.

“Placing these smaller salad kits in the traditional salad wall, as well as grab-and-go snacking and convenience sets, will increase consumer awareness and encourage impulse shoppers to grab a healthy mini chopped salad on-the-go.”

At Fresh Express, Lavin says a strong presentation is important, and, as shoppers purchase food from multiple retailers, features are important to grow sales. “Over 39% of our bagged salad kits are sold with merchandising, such as feature, display or price reduction, which is higher than the category at 30%. In 2019, the percentage of units sold on merchandising was 45%.”

Traditional merchandising, such as feature ads, still provides the most effective sales lift, Lavin adds, although technology has changed the way shoppers plan meals and gain inspiration. “We use digital media to reinforce bagged kits as a meal or entrée solution and use digital media and social platforms to communicate new items and usages, with marketing that goes beyond traditional discounting.”

Lavin says retailers also have updated their strategies to embrace digital apps. “We position kits as a suggestion to tie into other products in the basket, and vice versa, while also prioritizing new innovation in their search optimization to create excitement in the category.”