From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Home Fries: (top to bottom)
1997, original launch
packaging; 2003, “Taste the
chip from heaven!”; 2006, a
new look for the It’s All Good
campaign.
Today the Hull factory produces appetizers and finger foods for Britain and continental
Europe.
McCain never sold any vegetable other than potatoes in the U.K. retail market,
though they were an important part of McCain’s food service assortment in the early
years of production in Scarborough. Eventually, McCain GB withdrew from vegetables
to focus on its rapidly growing potato business.
McCain was also unsuccessful in its attempt to implant its farm equipment company,
Thomas Equipment, in Britain. The Canadian harvesters weren’t well adapted
for English fields and soil conditions, and Bobcat, a U.S. company, proved a tough
competitor against Thomas’s skid steer loaders.
In the first years of the new century, the issue of health and its relationship to what
we eat became increasingly important both in North America and Europe, especially
Britain. Fast food, in particular fried foods, were attacked as unhealthy and as major
contributors to obesity, cancer, diabetes, and other ailments. Oven Chips had originally
been promoted for their convenience. In 1985, well before the health issue rose to prominence,
McCain GB repositioned its product as the healthy way to eat french fries.
Because french fries are a more significant part of the U.K. dining-at-home menu
than the North American, McCain, with its Oven Chips, has had a positive impact
on the British diet. In the past, most homes had a deep fryer, which produced much
greasier chips while also risking burns and fires. McCain Oven Chips not only are
healthier than those deep-fried chips, they are safer. Oven Chips now account for
90 percent of all frozen chips sold in British stores. McCain estimates that since the
launch of Oven Chips, some twenty million pans of fat, containing half a billion calories,
have been removed from the British diet.
Although McCain had been selling a healthy french fry for nearly twenty years,
that wasn’t enough to overcome the barrage of negative publicity that came to a head
in the spring of 2005. Chef Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie’s School Dinners” campaign was
aimed at improving the food served in schools, including reducing the amount of
fried foods. At the same time, scares involving food additives resulted in more than
four hundred items being removed from store shelves. McCain products weren’t implicated,
but these incidents weakened consumers’ confidence in convenience foods.
Politicians, doctors, nutritionists, and the food industry were all drawn into a national
debate about health, obesity, and food quality. Critics of globalization jumped into
the fray, targeting international food brands for special abuse. McDonald’s became
the poster child for bad nutrition.
According to John Young, who became managing director of McCain GB in 2005,
frozen french fries have been “unfairly demonized, not based on any facts but on misguided
perceptions.” Consumer research revealed that many people thought all chips
were high in fat, and many didn’t even know that Oven Chips were made from fresh
potatoes. For the first time in twenty-five years, the British retail market for frozen
chips stopped growing.
In September 2006, McCain relaunched the brand with a campaign based on the
slogan “It’s all good.” The campaign included new packaging, new products, and new
advertising on TV, radio, and in movie theatres, as well as promotion through posters,
the press, the internet, and points-of-sale. The goal was to overcome consumer
confusion and shatter the myth that all french fries are unhealthy.
“The simple premise,” says Young, “is that McCain is a good company making
good food from simple, wholesome ingredients simply prepared – it’s all good.”
“McCain’s job,” says Sue Jefferson, McCain GB’s marketing director, “is to meet the
need of consumers. We have a history of responding to consumers’ needs. That’s why
we began using sunflower oil in 1988, when consumers asked for healthier choices. And
when consumers became concerned about genetically modified foods, McCain communicated
that its retail chips were made from Maris Piper, a traditional British variety.
The big issue now is to give consumers the facts to help them make informed choices.”
McCain GB is a major force in the British food industry. It has won several awards
from McDonald’s. The trade publication for British grocers named it the best branded
frozen food supplier three years in a row. In 2003, McCain’s Home Fries won
60 From the g round up
crossing the AtlA ntic 61
toP LEFt: McCain
demonstrates potato growing
to schoolchildren in the
London borough of Hackney
as part of the It’s All Good
campaign.
toP RIGht: Commercial
still from the It’s All Good TV
campaign, 2006.