LEAMINGTON, ON, CANADA - Asking “What is this?” has shifted in the mind of consumers. Gone are the days when this statement was a nail in a new item’s clamshell coffin—now it elicits a tone of intrigue and adventure.

“There is something to be said for consumer appreciation for new colors in food. They are curious and intrigued by what used to be terrifying,” Matt Quiring, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, observed.

It’s one of many assets the Vice President of Sales for Nature Fresh Farms® sees for the bright future of the company’s recently launched Sweet S’NAPS™. Debuted in a multitude of colors with a flavor profile and texture likened more to a Granny Smith apple than a traditional pepper, it is an offering Matt doubled down on as a disruptor of the category.

“You will not find a better-tasting pepper on the market that delivers this experience, I guarantee it,” Matt said. “Put this on the shelf, get people to taste it, and you will watch your sales in the category rise. For our part, it's not a question: We know it's going to do well—not out of arrogance, but because we've done our research. We know what we have.”

Matt walked me through a painstaking process of raw consumer trials that not only gave the team open reactions to Sweet S’NAPS, but that resulted in the entire brand and pack we now see as the final product.

“The findings completely diverted our branding plan, and the result is our current Sweet S’NAPS pack. Everything was developed with the consumer in mind. We did consumer research studies—qualitative and quantitative—which guided us in our brand proposition,” Matt shared, telling me this was a critical step in offering something disruptive.

You are, after all, facing the challenge of defying expectations. While this is a highly sought-after achievement, it also means establishing new expectations and education—a key retail need pointed out by CPMA’s international retail panel David Dudley of Sprouts Farmers Market, Daniel Bell of Grocery Outlet, and John Haycox of Costco.

“We've made it easy to understand what the product is by identifying usages on the packaging, we've called out flavor profile right in the name and the brand of the product, and now we're tying it all together with demos and merchandising programs to create product understanding,” Matt emphasizes. “When we look at launching tasty and new products at retail now, we know driving trial will be our primary path to success- especially with products that are different and taste so good like Sweet S’NAPS.”

In addition to Matt’s experience and faith in the product are the numbers seen across the Pond. In Europe, Nature Fresh is seeing these long, sweet peppers beginning to dominate the market.

“I understand they're roughly 50 percent of the sales dollars right now in the pepper category. Generally, what we see over there translates five years down the road here. Those sales domestically are less than 5 percent of the entire pepper category—there's a ton of opportunity in different usage occasions and through development of this category, not to mention the superior flavor compared to the standard bell peppers,” Matt said. And thanks to a wildly impressive shelf-life of Sweet S’NAPS, Nature Fresh is able to ship from coast to coast. “Just yesterday I was touring stores in British Columbia and product looked like it was picked yesterday off the vine!”

With so much potential on the horizon and the accolade of being the biggest push the esteemed greenhouse grower has brought to market in its 20-year history, this is an exciting offering to watch in the months and years ahead.