[식품]작았던 Kind Healthy Snacks이 커진다

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Kind Healthy Snacks Goes From Small to Big

Posted on February 21, 2013  

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-21/kind-healthy-snacks-goes-from-small-to-big#r=nav-f-story

Daniel Lubetzky, the son of a Holocaust survivor, was 25 when he started PeaceWorks, a business that brought Arabs and Israelis together to make and sell Mediterranean foods. He went on to found Kind Healthy Snacks in 2004. Today the New York company’s fruit-and-nut bars are sold at more than 50 big chains in the U.S.

At PeaceWorks, we started off making these Mediterranean spreads—basil pesto, sundried tomato, olive—and they were doing well. But by the time we were around $600,000 to $1 million in annual sales, we started getting greedy. We thought, let’s introduce more flavors. We went from 3 flavors to 6 flavors to 12 flavors and then 16 flavors. And in that rush we betrayed our customers.

We were a Mediterranean foods company, but we ran out of creative Mediterranean ideas. We started doing stuff that made no sense for us. I said, “All right, this one isn’t as delicious as the other ones, but maybe somebody will like it, maybe somebody won’t.” We introduced a sweet-and-spicy teriyaki pepper spread. It became the bane of my existence. Somebody tries that product, and not only are they disappointed, but they lose trust in the entire brand, and they lose trust in you. It was the stupidest mistake.

When we created Kind, I was obsessed with making sure we never, ever made that mistake again. When we give somebody a product from Kind, we have to exceed their expectations. So when we launched Nuts & Spices, our new line of low-sugar bars, it took us two years. It seems so deceptively simple, but we had set constraints for ourselves to not use anything artificial. If it’s zero sugar, that means you’re using artificial ingredients.

Initially we considered what our competitors were doing, which was using things whose names you can’t even pronounce but that were supposedly natural sugar alcohols. Fortunately, we looked in the mirror and said: “Wait, this is not us.” We said, “Let’s not cut those corners. Let’s keep the brand promise.”

We went back to the drawing board, threw out all these sugar alcohols, and said we’ll never use anything that’s artificial or that you could claim as natural but can’t pronounce. As we played with our formula, the product was coming out too hard. It was like a block—too brittle, hard to even bite into. Our obsession paid off, because the dark chocolate, nuts, and sea salt bar is now among the fastest-selling on a same-store basis in the entire category. — As told to Nick Leiber 

요약

Daniel Lubetzky는 25살에 지중해 음식을 아랍과 이스라엘에서 판매하던 PeaceWorks를 시작했고, 2009년에 Kind Healthy Snacks를 설립했고, 현재 뉴욕에서 50개 이상의 체인에서 과일과 너트 바를 판매하고 있다. 

 PeaceWorks에서 처음엔 잘 하다가 욕심을 부려 3가지(바질 페스토, 햇볕에 말린 토마토, 올리브) 맛에서 6개,12개, 16개로 늘 리다가 고객들을 배신했다. 지중해의 아이디어가 고갈되자 말도 안되는 것을 시작했다. 달고 매운 데리야끼 고추를 출시했고, 이는 골칫거리가 되었다. 고객들은 실망을 했을 뿐 아니라 브랜드에 대한 신뢰까지 잃었다. 이는 바보같은 실수였다. 

 Kind Healthy Snacks를 시작했을 때, 다시는 이와 같은 실수를 하지 않겠노라고 다짐을 했고, 저설탕 바 라인인 Nuts & Spices를 출시했는데 이는 2년이라는 시간이 걸렸다. 그 이유는 인공 재료를 사용하지 않기로 다짐을 했는데, 무설탕은 인공 재료를 사용한 것을 의미하기 때문이다. 초기에는 경쟁사들이 무엇을 하고 있고, 발음하기 어렵지만 자연적인 설탕 알코올을 의미하는 이름을 사용하고 있는지를 고려했고, 공식대로 작업을 했으나 제품은 너무 검정색이고 씹기에 너무 딱딱했다. 지금은 다크 초콜릿, 너트, 바다 소금 바가 전체 카테고리 안에서 가장 빠르게 판매되고 있으므로 그 집착이 성과를 올렸다.