Thinking small to grow big

By ELLEN READ

Standing out in a crowded industry can be a problem for many small businesses. How do you compete when you may not have the infrastructure and backing to take on the big players?

Faced with this dilemma, a food manufacturer from Mt Roskill decided to repackage and reposition its product to ensure it got noticed.

The Turkish Kitchen - a maker of GE-free spreads, dips, meals, soups and desserts - has introduced a mini-dip box containing three separate 50g pots of hummus and dips.

It hopes the packaging innovation will encourage more New Zealanders to eat its hummus, spreads and dips this summer.



The company has built a specially designed filling Machine that enables 3000 pots to be filled an hour, allowing for increased productivity to meet the expected increase in demand.

Managing director Luciell McIlroy says the packaging innovation is the first of its kind in the New Zealand dip market and is in response to consumer feedback and market research.

"The challenge for food manufacturers today is to constantly innovate and to work in with the ever-changing lifestyles of consumers," she said.

"We realised that for us to grow this category we needed to change the way people viewed hummus, dips and spreads, from being just entertainment food to an everyday food that can be consumed anytime, anywhere," she said.

ACNielsen research shows that refrigerated dips are one of the fastest growing global foods. Last year the category grew 10 per cent.

"We have two distinct points of difference from our competitors - we have the only authentic Turkish food products in supermarkets and we have a unique range of quality flavours that no one else sells, such as eggplant hummus and barbunya (pinto beans and tomato)," McIlroy says.

"You won't find the recipes we have on the internet; they're unique to us," she says.

McIlroy and husband Brett bought Turkish Kitchen last year from Haluk Cil, who migrated to New Zealand in the 1990s.

Cil developed healthy and authentic meal products, many of which meet special dietary needs, such as being gluten, wheat- and dairy-free.

He still oversees product development for the company.

Alongside the McIlroys, six staff handmake the food in the factory.

The company also employs a driver and a sales rep.