Shipping Reports

Monthly Shipping Report | October 2014

October 29, 2014

COUNCIL UPDATE

Secretary Vilsack Names Members to the Mushroom Council

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2014 — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has reappointed three members to serve on the Mushroom Council. They will serve three-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2015, and ending on Dec. 31, 2017.

Reappointed members are Pat Jurgensmeyer of Miami, Okla.; David Carroll of Reading, Pa.; and Elizabeth O’Neil Meurehg of Toronto, Canada.

  • The next Council meeting is being held on October 28-29, 2014 in Kennett Square, PA. If you are interested in attending, please contact [email protected] so we can make sure that you are accommodated.
  • The 23rd North American Mushroom Conference is taking place in San Juan, Puerto Rico on January 22-24, 2015. To register, visit mushroomconference.org. The Council will hold its first meeting of 2015 on Thursday, January 22 before the NAMC opening reception.
  • Exempt Producers: 2014 exemption numbers will expire on December 31 and it is necessary to reapply for the 2015 calendar year. Applications, as a courtesy, will be mailed to those who were exempt this year. If you would like an application, they can be found online at mushroomcouncil.org or contact Cheryl at 408-432-7210 or [email protected]

SHIPMENT SUMMARY

First Handler Report July 2014

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To see current charts click here.

MARKETING SUMMARY

Mushroom Council Marketing Summary –September 2014

September 2014 Media Impressions

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September 2014 was a consumer media blockbuster, with Council activation taking place across traditional, social media and online partner platforms. See the best of September programming in the Mushroom Month report and share the one-page case with your customers and partners to emphasize consumer demand for mushrooms.

September Mushroom Month consumer media highlights and partnerships with chefs featured mushrooms across all media platforms with high profile placements showcasing the Blendability technique and versatility with mushrooms. Flavor, versatility and vitamin D were most common topics covered:

  • 24 percent of placements mentioned Blendability
  • 12 percent of articles mentioned the blend study published in the Journal of Food Science

Trade Media

 

Click on the links below to view highlights from September Consumer Media coverage:

  • National media including Glamour, SELF, Prevention and Health showcased the benefits of Blendability and the sensory study conducted by the Culinary Institute of America and University of California-Davis supporting the flavor-enhancing properties of mushrooms. Family Circle published Council research presented earlier this year at the Experimental Biology conference.

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  • A national, satellite media tour about family favorites highlighted Blendability, sensory study data and nutritional benefits of mushrooms. Broadcasted across 100 syndicated daytime television markets and on “The Daily Buzz,” mushroom content aired across 166 markets garnering a total of 2.9M+ impressions.
  • The Council distributed a press release over the national wire on 9/18 which highlighted Blendability, nutrition and cooking tips from Chef Linton Hopkins; promoted opportunities to engage with the Council during National Mushroom Month; and drove to new benefit and blend content housed on mushroominfo.com.
  • Mushrooms were discussed in a webinar on 9/16 that focused on Cancer Prevention Through Immunomodulation: Does Diet Play a Role, which was hosted by the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Health. Inclusion was the result of activation following the Mushrooms and Health Summit in which the Council’s research advisory panel members pushed to get mushrooms on the agenda.
  • The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 2014 Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE) will take place in Atlanta (10/18-21). The Council is sponsoring the Foundation gala and will be serving a mushroom and blend-focused menu to attendees. Greater FNCE attendees will also visit the Mushroom Council Booth (#2610) to learn more about mushrooms.
  • Participated in a Twitter party hosted by Fruits and Veggies – More Matters, where the Council highlighted the benefits of mushrooms and the Blendability technique in conversation around preparing healthier family meals.
    • Resulted in 320+ unique participants, 4K+ tweets and 930K+ impressions

 

  • Participated in a Twitter party sponsored by Mushroom Council partner, Tomato Wellness, which provided a platform to share fun, easy to prepare fall mushroom appetizers and meals with an audience intrested in seasonal meal prep ideas, tips and recpes.
    • Resulted in 240+ unique participants, 4K+ tweets and 460K+ impressions

 

  • The Council kicked off Mushroom Month by partnering with two, influential online communities:
    • Life of Dad, a top blog and social media network, hosted a month-long #ShroomTember activation promoting quick and easy family meals, mushroom Bendability and consisted of a three week recipe challenge, a Twitter party and podcast
      • Three-part mushroom recipe challenge resulted in 40+ recipe entries (20+ blend)
      • Just Cook Dad’s kid-friendly blend cooking video received 390+ views
      • Twitter party garnered 670K+ unique impressions, 7.7K+ tweets, 250+ unique participants and 50+ new Twitter followers
      • The hashtag, #ShroomTember also received 8.8K+ mentions, 24M+ impressions
        and trended twice in the US during the Twitter party
    • Top online food destination, Serious Eats, featured eight custom recipes on their site, starting with a profile piece on Chef Linton Hopkins. All posts were promoted on social media and amplified via banner ads driving back to MushroomInfo.com
      • Four posts highlighted the Council’s partnerships with Chef Hopkins and Chef Jehangir Mehta, including their love for mushrooms and several mentions of Blendability
      • Co-created content series generated nearly 29M impressions

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  • The Channel engaged with eight food service partners including Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants, Coco’s Bakery, Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom, O’Charleys, Max & Ermas, Marie Callender’s and Lazy Dog Cafe.
    • Promoted food service partner, Season’s 52’s extended menu item (Mushroom Duxelle Burger) across social in September

Post by The Mushroom Channel.
  • The September Culinary Institute of America’s video featured CIA Chef Chef Bill Briwa and Bart Minor demonstrating how to use the Blendability technique to revamp American classic meals was featured in a Blendability-focused blog post on Mushroominfo.com and recevied 40+ views.
    • The Facebook post promoting the blog post received 1.5K+ likes and 300+ shares
  • Nine promoted Facebook posts in September included content highlighting National Mushroom Month, the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival, Boston’s Let’s Talk about Food Festival/Better Burger Challenge and the Life of Dad #ShroomTember program. (An additional $1,000 was added to monthly budget for Mushroom Month).
    • Promoted posts reached 230K+ people and resulted in 13K+ likes, 1.9K+ shares, 23K+ link clicks, 0.17 cost per like and $5.58 cost per every 1,000 engagements

Post by The Mushroom Channel.

Post by The Mushroom Channel.

Post by The Mushroom Channel.

pinterest-shroomtember

  • A #ShroomTember pinterest board was added to the Mushroom Channel Pinterest page and featured a total of 36 pins which generated 3.7K+ followers, 140+ repins and 17 likes.
  • Search ad words accounted for 13.25 percent of total visits in September. Top performing paid keywords included: mushroom recipes, stuffed mushrooms and mushroom soup.

 

 

September 14 Traffic

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Announcing the 2014 Swap It or Top It recipe contest winners via the Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) in October.

For more detailed social analytics download the NEW Social Analytics Report here.

 

FOODSERVICE SUMMARY

Fall is here, and blendability and mushrooms in general remain show no signs of cooling down, showing up at events, in promotions and on menus.

foodservice-pennstatePenn State: This major university heard about blendability from one of our presentations and demos, and decided that it was right for them. As a test, they showcased a blended mushroom and lamb gyro in one of their dining halls during lunch. Serving around 1,500 portions and hearing a flood of positive comments, the university and the Council are working on a larger promotion and menuing for the Spring semester. While in Happy Valley, the Council met with Happy Valley Meat Company which has decided to develop a blend product for its high end college dining and Philadelphia and New York City restaurants.

foodservice-mushroom-superfoodMushrooms As Superfood: As we mentioned last month, thousands of colleges, hospitals and business dining operations are celebrating October as Mushrooms: Superfood Month. Compass, which created the promotion along with the Council, has developed sales tools including a video, a PowerPoint for use on dining room monitors and a host of others. Every guest at Compass has a chance to win a drawing for a “Build Your Own Mountain Bike” promotion. A number of special recipes were developed, while units were encouraged to utilize their own blendability recipes. Here is an example of one station in one unit that fit the promotion into their existing blendability promotion and featured 3 new blendable items every day.

foodservice-LTAF-bbpBuild A Better Burger Project: The Boston event that was publicized last month was even more successful than anticipated. Tens of thousands of people showed up to the event in Copley Square put on by The Boston Globe and Let’s Talk About Food. Harvard was in the Mushroom Council booth to serve their blended chili to attendees while many of the top chefs in Boston hit the stage for a cook-off of blended burgers. These chefs were so intrigued by the concept that they helped the Globe name the competition—The Better Burger Project, while cooking off their versions of the blended burger. Some used lamb, veal, beef, turkey, a number of sauces and toppings, but they all were blended with the chefs’ choice of mushrooms. Each of the chefs has put their creation on their menus, while Whole Foods in the area began selling a mushroom blended burger in their prepared foods section. The Boston Globe, as well as Let’s Talk About Food publicized the event, both pre and post, and want to roll the event out in the Northeast region with other chefs adopting the Blend.
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foodservice-epcot
Epcot Food and Wine: Epcot kicked off last month, but Blendability made its mark over the last several weeks of the Festival. Every day of the 58-day festival, mushroom blendability was on display at the Africa kiosk with a turkey-mushroom blended baboutie. As consumers ate their way around the world, they also could find mushrooms at the outdoor kiosks in Italy, Canada and England. Chef Jehangir Mehta was on hand to conduct two demos of his Graffiti blended burger and other chefs from Disney used mushrooms and blendability in their demonstrations. While there were turkey-mushroom fritters and even a mushroom-meat tartar, the most interesting might have been a shiitake-tuna burger. The recipe will be up soon on the website.

Chains Introduce New Mushroom Items: A number of new items were introduced on chain menus this month showcasing the versatility of mushrooms. The items included a Smoked Gouda-Mushroom-Caramelized Onion Burger from Coco’s, an Egg White Veggie Omelet from O’Charley’s, a Double Shrimp Pasta with Mushrooms in a Parmesan-Romano-Asiago-Herb Cream Sauce, a Turkey Avocado Mushroom Swiss Burger at Max & Erma’s and a Ginger Soy Salmon with Mushrooms at Lazy Dog.

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foodservice-rocktoberfest-macandcheese
Rock Bottom ran their annual Rocktoberfest promotion and mushrooms played a big role. They introduced a line of mushroom mac ‘n cheeses with different varieties of sausage. The American featured beer-poached sausage over mushroom mac ‘n cheese; the German saw knackwurst, bratwurst and Hungarian sausage atop mushroom mac ‘n cheese and the Latin had beer-simmered chorizo sausage over mushroom mac ‘n cheese. What a great way to celebrate the comfort of the fall.

 

SCHOOL NUTRITION SUMMARY

  • The USDA hosted the Mushroom Council to participate in a mushroom blended product showcase on September 18th. Products from school industry processors Advance Pierre, JTM MaidRite and Giorgio Foods were presented to members of the USDA, including Deputy Under Secretary, Krysta Harden. The meeting promoted the success of the mushrooms in schools program since its introduction in 2012. The Council also presented ‘speed-scratch’ recipes and yields for diced mushrooms and ground beef. Modifying USDA specs will facilitate the use of IQF mushrooms in scratch cooking applications in districts rather than restricting use to only processed product.
  • Products demoed at the USDA were mushroom blended burgers, mushroom blended marinara sauce, tacos and more.
  • Planning began for a fall mushroom Farm to School promotion with Philadelphia Public Schools. The promotion will include a meet the farmer event, fresh mushrooms on the salad bar, mushroom entrees and nutrition posters in all participating farm to school, schools. Thousands of schools participating in the Farm to School program now incorporate fresh mushrooms into their programs, up tremendously from the previous year according to the farm to school product tracker.
  • Case studies and recipes were added to the school nutrition website. All resources can be found at mushroomsinschools.com
  • Mushroom Blendability ads ran in the September issue of School Nutrition Magazine
  • Planning has started to launch mushroom blendability through a major foodservice management company, introducing mushroom blendability to hundreds of districts throughout the country. A test will be held in an Oregon district in October to measure acceptability with students. All meat products will be switched out for mushroom blended products for the test.
  • Council School Nutrition resources can be found here.

 

RETAIL SUMMARY

Retail-Data-06-15-2014

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The Topline report week ending 09/07/14 was sent to the industry on 10/17/14; click here to access the report online.
Topline Retail Report – Highlights – (4 and 52 Weeks Ending 9/07/2014)

Spotlight – Notable and Newsworthy
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Total Mushrooms – 4 Weeks

  • retail_mushroom-outpacedThe Total U.S. dollar sales trend of +3.2% outpaced Total Produce’s growth of +2.9% by +0.3 point
  • Midsouth led in dollar growth rate at +5.1%, followed by South Central at +5.0%
  • On a Market basis, Albany posted strong dollar growth at +17.9%. St. Louis posted the largest decline, down -4.7%
  • Total U.S. Organic dollar sales grew +35.9%, driven by Great Lakes (+33.7%) which holds a 34.8% share of total Organic dollars
  • Volume in pounds for Total U.S. increased +3.3% and Midsouth led the Regions with a volume increase of +8.9%. Plains declined -6.9%
  • At the Market level, Charlotte showed the largest increase in volume at +23.1%
  • Total Organic volume increased +51.8%, driven by Great Lakes (+59.5%) which holds a 49.6% share of total Organic volume

Segment/Variety – 4 Weeks
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  • Total U.S. dollar sales of the White segment increased +1.6% while Brown mushrooms exhibited growth of +5.6%
  • Cremini mushrooms grew dollar sales +2.6% and Portabellas increased +11.5%
  • On a Regional basis, White mushroom growth rates varied from up +6.1% in California to down -2.6% in Southeast
  • Brown mushrooms fared better with growth in seven of eight regions. California dollars declined -3.3%, while dollars in South Central grew +11.3%
  • White segment dollars were down in 24 of 49 Markets with results ranging from growth of +24.5% in Albany to a decline of -7.5% in Jacksonville. In the Brown segment, 39 of 49 Markets posted strong gains, including Grand Rapids (+19.6%), Detroit (+19.3%) and Charlotte (+16.6%)
  • Total U.S. volume in pounds for the White segment was flat, while the Brown segment saw overall volume growth of +9.5%, driven by Portabella mushrooms, up +23.9%
  • In the Brown segment, Great Lakes led Regional volume growth at +21.7%. California and Plains declined -4.8% and -1.1%, respectively

Total Mushrooms – 52 Weeks
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  • The Total U.S. dollar sales trend of +2.9% lagged Total Produce’s growth trend of +4.9% by -2.0 points
  • Most Markets experienced dollar growth, notably Omaha (+10.4%), Houston (+9.5%) and Chicago (+8.1%)
  • South Central (9.1% dollar share) led the Regions with the top dollar sales trend of +5.2%. Northeast holds the largest dollar share (20.7%), but grew only +1.0%. All Regions posted gains
  • Total U.S. Organic dollar sales grew +35.5%, driven by Great Lakes (+21.8%) which holds a 35.1% share of total Organic dollars
  • Total U.S. mushroom volume in pounds grew +2.2%
  • Six of eight Regions delivered volume growth, led by Midsouth at +4.6%. Plains and South Central were flat
  • Only 8 of 49 Markets saw downward volume trends, including Sacramento (-4.0%), Cleveland (-3.8%) and Buffalo/Rochester (-2.4%)
  • Organic volume increased +34.8%, driven by Great Lakes (+24.1%) which holds a 49.0% share of total Organic volume

Segment/Variety – 52 Weeks
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  • Total U.S. dollar sales for the White segment were flat, while California (+3.5%) and South Central (+1.7%) posted the only gains. In the Brown segment, dollar sales were up +7.1% in Total U.S.
  • In the Brown segment, seven Regions posted positive trends, of which four Regions were in the double-digits
    • Total U.S. Brown segment dollar trends were driven by Portabella mushrooms, which hold a 32.3% dollar share of Browns and delivered sales growth of +20.2%
  • At the Market level, dollar sales trends in the White segment ranged from an increase of +9.9% in Sacramento to a -5.2% decline in Toledo
  • The Brown segment saw very strong dollar sales gains across 46 of 49 Markets, with Denver leading at +24.6%. Sacramento showed the largest decline of -17.9%
  • Total U.S. volume in pounds of White mushrooms was flat, but growth was seen in Northeast (+1.2%)
  • Total U.S. volume in pounds of Brown mushrooms grew +8.4%, led by Midsouth with growth of +14.2%
    • Total U.S. Brown segment volume growth trends were driven by Portabella mushrooms which have a 30.6% volume share of Browns and delivered volume growth of +28.5%
  • As with dollars, the Market level volume trends for the White segment were mixed, with 17 Markets trending upward including Charlotte (+10.2%) and Omaha (+8.2%)
  • The volume trend of Brown mushrooms fared better, with only four Markets trending downward. Sacramento (-20.4%) and Buffalo/Rochester (-4.9%) posted the largest losses
    • Strong volume growth in the Brown segment occurred in these Markets: Louisville (+27.5%), Grand Rapids (+22.7) and Nashville (+20.1%)

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