Dole salad kits win innovation prize

Dole Chopped Salad Kits has been chosen from among nearly 3,500 consumer products for a Nielsen Breakthrough Innovation Award for 2016.

In a press release, Nielsen said this year’s 18 award winners met its rigorous requirements for distinctiveness, relevance and endurance.

In Nielsen’s Breakthrough Innovation report this year, Dole vice president of marketing CarrieAnn Arias said Dole had set out to create a bagged salad that was not just good, it had to be ‘craveable’.

It also aimed to deliver a salad experience “that was indulgent…but not unhealthy.”

“We approached the challenge as one of enabling a restaurant-quality experience at home,” she said.

Dole experimented with 50-60 different ingredients and an even greater variety of dressings, Arias said, underlining how complex its product development process was.

It also paid close attention to packaging, finding that a narrower bag helped keep the ingredients better distributed vertically, making for a much better at-shelf visual than the standard pillow bag.

“We have now created a runaway success that is transforming the produce section – selling over $100 million in its second year and growing strong at more than 115% in the past year.

“One of our biggest challenges is to keep up with growth, not run out of kale (no joke!), and continue to innovate to address consumers’ increasing demand for more and different ‘craveable’ salads.

“We will continue to stay close with our consumers, who are extremely active on social media, collaborate with our retail partners, and monitor evolving trends in the restaurant scene,” she said.