After developing a legacy in whole-grain bread products, Roman Meal Co. says it looks forward to branching out into other realms.

Based in Tacoma, Wash., Roman Meal Co. is dedicated to producing whole-grain products that promote health and wellness. Director of Marketing Todd Kluger says the company provides bread mixes to national and international bakeries that bake and sell the Roman Meal brand.

“We also [produce] a line of cereals and snack bars,” he says, adding that the products are 100 percent whole-grain items that the company sells on its own. Although Roman Meal has established itself as a national brand in the marketplace, Kluger says the company has not taken its success for granted. “Innovative new products [are] key to our success,” he states.

Passion for Products
Roman Meal is owned by the Matthaei family, which has long had a presence in the bread industry. In 1686, the family founded its first bakery in Marburg, Germany. In 1872, Henry Matthaei left Marburg and moved to Kansas City, Mo., where he established a bakery. After Matthaei’s business merged with other bakeries, his son, William Matthaei, bought a bakery in Tacoma.

Once Matthaei’s business experienced success, he built a larger facility. According to Roman Meal, the company grew to become the dominant bakery in southeast Washington.

In 1927, Matthaei purchased the Roman Meal Co., a Canadian company. A key product for Roman Meal was its Dr. Jackson’s Roman Health Meal product, a hot breakfast cereal of whole-grain wheat, rye, bran and flaxseed that could be used for making bread, as well as pancakes and muffins. Dr. Robert Jackson had developed the Health Meal product in an effort to improve his own health.

A historian, Jackson had based the recipe on the early diets of Roman legionnaires. With the Health Meal formulation, Matthaei produced the company’s Roman Meal bread. “[It] was one of the first whole-grain brands that was mass-produced,” Kluger states.

Taking Action
Kluger joined Roman Meal last year. Previously, he was a brand manager for Starbucks Corp. Kluger says his role as director of marketing has allowed him to aid in the revitalization of the company’s brand and re-establish its presence in the whole-grain market.

“It was a good challenge to take what I learned from my years at Starbucks [and] put it to use to help revitalize a 100-year-old brand,” he says. The largest part of this revitalization plan has been the addition of new products, Kluger says. This has included its new 100 percent Whole Grain Snack Bars, featuring a mix of fruit and whole grains.

“[It] was taken through our product development process and scored pretty well with our customers,” he explains. “It was an example of being able to take the brand and extend it to other areas.”

The company also has introduced a new cobrand called Ruby’s, which it developed with the Red Hat Society, based in Fullerton, Calif. Kluger explains that Red Hat Society is a social group that celebrates women 50 years old and older.

“They are also very much into health and wellness products,” he adds. Roman Meal has developed a line of breads with the group, including apple cinnamon, cranberry and raisin spice breads. Roman Meal and Red Hat Society have developed a cranberry walnut snack bar, as well.

After performing market research, Kluger says Roman Meal Co. discovered that its customer base was comprised largely of women age 50 and above. “We’ve focused very clearly on that,” he says, adding that the company has decided to create new products for this demographic.

“A large part of what we will be doing is creating healthier whole-grain products,” Kluger adds. “We see a lot of opportunity there.”

Rising Up
“We’ve been very thankful that we’ve had good bakery partners over the years,” Kluger says, noting that many of its partners have come and gone. “There has been a lot of consolidation in the baking industry,” he says. “We went from having many different licenses out there to having singularly owned, large bakeries bake the product.”

Recently, Kluger says, Roman Meal has seen many smaller, regional bakeries rise up around the country, interested in purchasing the Roman Meal bread mixes. He credits this change in the market to a need for more efficiency. “Having the big bakeries buy all the small bakeries was efficient at one time,” he states. “But putting bread on trucks and sending it hundreds and hundreds of miles across a region of the country is not as cost efficient anymore.”

Internally, Roman Meal Co. has a quality assurance department where the bread is run through laboratory analysis. The bakery partners send their fresh bread to Roman Meal headquarters, where it is stringently tested and verified as being baked to Roman Meal Co.’s high standards. FAD