Spinach continues to be a popular green with consumers and there are hopes of bringing back consumers to the fresh cooking spinach market and away from frozen spinach, a category that has seen sizable growth. In November, Little Bear Produce introduced Cooking with Spinach, a Savoy spinach-based product to appeal to consumers who are looking for more value in a cooking spinach. "This was in the market about five years ago and was the number one cooking green item in the United States for about eight or nine years," says Barrett Ortego of Little Bear Produce, noting it was then discontinued because the then-grower/shipper to focus solely on organics.
© Little Bear Produce
The item is a teen spinach–so bigger than a baby spinach, but still with a crisp baby spinach-like taste that gives good yields when cooked down. It's a 16 oz. item that's enough to feed a family. "Cost savings wise, it's cheaper per oz than other cooking greens so we're giving families a reasonable, healthy choice to cook at a good value. It also cooks very fast," says Ortego, adding that the product is being rolled out regionally in the U.S. and Canada and is added to the company's line up of existing cooking greens which includes kale, mustard greens, turnip greens and more.
The popularity of spinach
As for demand, it's been growing double digits consistently since its introduction. "Once December hit with families coming home, it's been doing very well where we have it," says Ortego. "We've also introduced it as closely as it's been offered in the past to ensure that all that research and the success the brand had before is repeated so people are familiar with it."
© Little Bear Produce
Indeed, the product is targeted towards different occasion users of spinach to cook with. "General consumption of spinach is on the upswing, especially this time of the year with New Year's resolutions. New generations are also excited by health and new flavors and spinach and health are known universally. It's the vanilla flavor of the cooking greens segment that is popular coast to coast," says Ortego.
For more information:
Barrett Ortego
Little Bear Produce
Tel: +1 (956) 380-0353
https://www.littlebearproduce.com/
