McKenzie’s Foods, a household name in pantry staples, has launched into an entirely new market with the release of its Ready to Bake Cookies. It is the company’s first foray outside ‘scratch cooking’ products such as specialty flours and baking aids in its 172-year history.
Food & Drink Business spoke to McKenzie’s Foods GM Field Sales & Growth, Jake Jacob.
Why did McKenzie’s decide to develop an entirely new product line?
McKenzie’s has been a trusted consumer brand in Australia for over 170 years and is particularly well known for everyday pantry staples. Pantry staples are fundamental for ‘scratch cooking’ of delicious home cooked meals and treats. However, some consumers are looking for more convenient meal and snack solutions that require just a small amount of finishing.
There are also the emotional benefits of the enjoyment and the sense of involvement that come from undertaking this final stage of preparation. We were keen to tap into this market and fuelled by insights from our consumer research, it became clear that McKenzie’s had permission to move into a new era of product offering.
We started with a small cross functional team creating a vision for the baking category, one of McKenzie’s core staples categories, which comprises a wide range of specialty flours and baking aids. We then explored various adjacent and new categories for the brand and evaluated their potential.
While there were a number of chilled ‘sliceable’ cookie dough offerings in the baking category, we identified a gap in the market for individual frozen ready to bake cookies.
What followed was an incredible cross functional effort by almost every function at HSK Ward Group to bring McKenzie’s Ready To Bake Cookies to life.
Why the freezer format?
Freshness. convenience and portion control were the key drivers of the frozen format. The frozen format allowed for the product to be pre-cut for ease and portion-controlled so that cookie consumers can bake as many or as few as you like, knowing that the cookies that remain in the resealable freezer bag will stay fresh.
What could be more irresistible than the aroma of freshly baked cookies wafting throughout the house, and more convenient than them being baked from frozen in just 10 minutes without any mess or clearing up to do?
McKenzie’s is first to market in supermarkets in Australia with an offering of cookies in an individual ready to bake frozen puck format and we are very excited to see how consumers respond to them.
Are there more products in the pipeline? Can you say when they will be launched?
Yes, there are! We are actively developing our pipeline and commercialisation plans for new and exciting products under the McKenzie’s brand in adjacent and new categories to the ones in which the brand already has a presence. Watch this space.
The Ready-to-Bake Cookies range come in a resealable pack of 10 in three flavours – Chocolate Chip, Triple Chocolate, and White Chocolate Macadamia – and transfer straight from the packet into an oven or air fryer.
They are stocked in the freezer section of Woolworths and Coles.
