[식품]PAAS와 Manischewitz는 남은 해 동안 무엇을 할까?

Companies & Industries

What Do PAAS and Manischewitz Do the Rest of the Year?

By Drake Bennett on March 25, 2013  

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-25/what-do-paas-and-manischewitz-do-the-rest-of-the-year#r=nav-fs

For Christians and Jews, this is a time of year to think about renewal and repentance, liberation and grace. The good people who work at PAAS and Manischewitz are also thinking about the secular process of raking it in. PAAS is the leading American maker of kits for dying Easter eggs. Manischewitz is the nation’s largest manufacturer of matzo, which even Jews who do not keep kosher consume on Passover.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about a business that makes much of its money at one time of year (e.g., H&R Block, or the entire retail shopping sector, for that matter, which depends hugely on Christmas shopping), but few brands are so tightly tied to a single holiday. Even Necco, maker of the Valentine’s Day conversation heart, still has the Necco Wafer and the Clark Bar.

How does a company stay in business selling something that people only consume once a year? Of the two, Manischewitz is far less seasonal. The company has diligently worked to broaden its appeal beyond Passover and beyond Jews, marketing its stocks and gravies and Tiny Tam crackers as year-round, Gentile-friendly health food. In 2000, sales tied to Passover accounted for 80 percent of Manischewitz sales. By 2011, they had dropped to 40 percent. (Two ironic historical asides: 1. Manischewitz no longer makes Manischewitz wine, since 1986 it has licensed the name to Constellation Brands (STZ); and 2. The Concord grape, from which Manischewitz wine is made, was developed by a 19th century nativist farmer obsessed with developing pure American fruit varietals untainted by “Semitic” strains.)

PAAS has taken the opposite approach. There may be a raft of craft enthusiasts interested in year-round egg dying. PAAS has not set out to find those people. Some 80 percent of the egg-decorating kits PAAS sells every year are bought the week before Easter, according to Kyle Stenzel, the head of marketing for PAAS’s parent company, Signature Brands. Stenzel says they’re already making presentations to retailers for the 2014 line of products, and working on 2015. Among the new offerings for this year: “Oh So Chic,” which pairs egg dye and stick-on rhinestone shapes including a cupcake and a dragonfly, and “Touch of Velvet,” which is probably self-explanatory.

From its roots in cake decorating, Signature Brands now specializes in commercializing the way people decorate their food on holidays. Signature Brands products include Betty Crocker decorative icings and musical candles and Cake Mate decorating gels. As the company has grown, it’s become holiday-diversified. “We look at holidays in four buckets,” says Stenzel. “Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.”

Asked whether the egg-dye manufacturer has to use part-time workers to account for the Easter surge, Stenzel said no, it could just draw from workers elsewhere in the company. When Easter is over, it can move workers over to Pumpkin Masters, which sells jack-o’-lantern carving kits. After Halloween, it can shift them to packing caramel and cheese into colorful decorative tins for the Christmas rush at Popcorn Expressions. Then there’s Valentine’s Day, but Signature doesn’t really do much there.

“It’s really a chocolate-driven holiday and we don’t have a portfolio of chocolate products,” Stenzel says.

요약

 부활절 계란을 만드는 미국의 선두 기업 PAAS와 무교병(유대인들이 전통적으로 유월절에 먹는 비스킷 비슷한 빵)의 최대 제조업체 Manischewitz에서 일하는 좋은 사람들은 세속적인 과정으로 돈을 벌고 있다. 

일년에 한 번 수익을 창출하는 한 사업에 대해 생각하는 것은 특별한 것이 아니다. 그러나 한 휴일에만 긴밀하게 연결된 브랜드는 거의 없다. 어떻게 일년에 한 번 소비하는 것을 판매하는 기업이 사업을 유지할까? 두 기업 중 Manischewitz는 훨씬 계절적이지 않다. 이 회사는 유대인 이외의 매력을 확대하기 위해 그레이비(고기를 익힐 때 나온 육즙에 밀가루 등을 넣어 만든 소스), Tiny Tam 크래커를 마케팅하면서 부지런히 일하고 있다. 2000년도에 유월절과 관련된 매출은 전체 매출의 80%였고, 2011년에는 비중을 40%로 떨어뜨렸다. 

 

PAAS는 그 반대의 접근을 취하고 있다. 매년 판매하는 부활절 계란 꾸미기 키트는 부활절 전 주부터 판매가 된다. PAAS는 미리 2014년의 부활절 제품에 대한 프레젠테이션을 유통업자들에게 하며 2015년을 준비 중이다. 

 케이크 꾸미기로 시작해서 Signature Brands는 휴일에 음식을 직접 꾸미는 것을 상업화하고 있다. 이 기업이 성장함에 따라, 다양한 휴일을 다루고 있다.