The O-KE-DOKE popcorn line is one of many snacks under Ubiquity Brands, which recently launched several new products.

As the name suggests, the company intends to make the brands ubiquitous in the national and local retail food scene. Recognizing the customer demand for snacks that offered new flavors, Ubiquity added several new products in the last three years to its lineup and is working its way into several well-recognized, national retail outlets.

Dunn joined Ubiquity in February 2006 with 20-plus years in the food and beverage industry. He served as president of Coca-Cola’s North American business unit and as a consultant for several private equity partners in the food and beverage segment.

He saw the potential to bring the brands up to speed with consumer demand for snacks that were both bold in flavor and high in quality. “There was room for roll-up in the snack food business,” he says.

Jays potato chips originated in 1927 in Chicago as a potato chip and pretzel manufacturer. Today, the chip flavors have expanded well beyond original, and now feature more than eight flavors. The O-KE-DOKE ready-to-eat popcorn line followed in 1976, and soon after, Krunchers kettle-cooked chips were added in 1986. Both Jays and the Krunchers line have been Chicago favorites and are distributed from a local manufacturing facility.

The sweet line formed in 1960 with the Poppycock caramel-glazed popcorn and nut concoction. Fiddle Faddle, the popcorn and peanut sweet treat, was added in 1967 and the Lincoln Snacks manufacturing facility was built in Lincoln, Neb., that same year.

An investment group formed Ubiquity to purchase the brands in 2004, and has since launched several new products in addition to bringing additional value to its seven core brands. “In the food and beverage space today, the consumer is looking for innovation across all dimensions,” Dunn asserts. “We were clearly looking for new avenues. What has driven [the] food and beverage [industry] in the last five to 10 years is innovation around product and packaging.”

Injecting New Flavor
As popular as the brands have been, Dunn and the Ubiquity Brand team – all of whom have extensive experience in the food and beverage industry – decided there was room in the market to add new flavors to its chip and popcorn snacks. “Product innovation has sort of been the name of the game,” he attests.

Ubiquity jumped feet first into a new market mix with its Krunchers! brand, adding four new flavor-infused tortilla chips in early 2007. The flavors – restaurant style, guacamole, spicy salsa and spicy four cheese – are actually baked directly into the tortilla rather than adding seasoning at the end, which makes a better-tasting product, he says. And, because salty snacks are often considered an impulse purchase, Dunn says, the company was careful when planning the Krunchers packaging. With this in mind, the tortilla chip packaging was designed with high-resolution, and bright colors to increase the point of impact on the shelf.

Product innovation is as much a result of creative thinking and consumer demand as it is a way of keeping instep with the competition. With snack food giant Frito Lay leading the market, Dunn says it sells both the salty and sweet snacks at a premium price to further set it apart from the competition.

“Our belief is that we need to be in a differentiated position,” Dunn says. “Frito Lay is such a dominant player in the middle market, that you have to be higher or lower than them.”

In the first fiscal quarter of 2007, it added baked pita chips and a reduced-fat version of Krunchers!. “All of those have worked very well; our market share is up six points and we’ve doubled our tortilla share,” Dunn claims. He says Nielsen consumer ratings have shown “very strong growth over the past 18 months, and that’s because we bring the consumer a differentiated and interesting product.”

Despite its success, Ubiquity acts as a think tank, devising and testing new flavor profiles. “We look to fill our pipeline with new and fresh ideas,” says Cheryl Szego, marketing director who also heads Ubiquity’s sweet snack branding initiatives. “Consumers of salty snacks are always looking for flavor variety and we’re always looking at how we can move forward. Consumers tend to get bored quickly, so we’re always trying to create excitement in the marketplace.”

True Indulgence
In March, the company rolled out its latest innovation on the sweet snack side with an upscale, nut and candy line of Poppycock treats called Indulgence.

“In looking at Poppycock as an upscale adult treat, and through looking at trends, you see consumers trading-up. Specifically, this trend is evident among women,” Szego says. “I saw a huge opportunity in developing a product targeted toward today’s women.”

Through quantitative research, the company determined that its target audience – women ages 35 to 54 – were looking for two things: a sweet, indulgent snack and an outlet in which they could give back to others. As a result, the company created five flavors depicted by creative names such as Simply Diva, Nights in White Chocolate and Belgian Love Affair.

“Working with our product development team, we decided to look at trends in the candy and coffee drinks industries,” she explains. Dark chocolate and hazelnut stood out as two favorites, and were therefore incorporated into the flavor profiles. Indulgence retails for $3.99 per 3 to 3.5-ounce box and is sold at grocery and drug stores nationwide.

In her research, Szego also found that more than 30 percent of the 500-person survey base indicated they would be more likely to buy the product if it was associated with a socially responsible cause. As a result, it partnered with CARE, a humanitarian organization aimed at fighting poverty among women on a global level. For every box sold, a $1 contribution up to $50,000 will be made to CARE to help fund programs that help women in villages in needy countries.
    
Other Investments
New investment doesn’t stop with new snacks. “Part of having growth is that you have to invest in it,” Dunn says. Since 2004, the company has made significant capital improvements at its manufacturing facilities, including updated computer hardware, new kettles and high-speed baggers and packers for its chips. The company produces close to 90 percent of what it sells at three manufacturing plants in Lincoln and one each in Chicago and Jeffersonville, Ind. The remaining percent is contracted with co-packers. Dealing with corn and potato commodities, Dunn says, “[the product comes] out of the ground on day one and we’re producing on day two. “In the food business, when you have a shelf life, it’s important to ensure the freshness of a product,” Dunn adds. “A lot of work goes into managing the end-to-end process. We have direct store delivery in core markets and in most of the rest of our markets.”

On average, chips have an eight-week shelf life, while the carmelized popcorn line can last close to one year.

Brand Loyalty: Is It Dead?
While the Jays and Krunchers! lines have been Chicago favorites, Dunn says, it hopes to capture a wider audience by launching the products on a national level. In May 2006, Ubiquity secured rights to distribute five kettle flavors of Jays potato chips in Walgreens stores, and is in the process of rolling out Krunchers! nationally. Currently, the majority of the salty products are distributed in 15 Midwest states.

“We tend to find that we do have a fairly loyal customer base,” he notes, adding that where the company does business, it claims between 15 and 20 percent of the market share.

“We will never be as big as Frito Lay, but we can provide better variety,” Dunn maintains.