Branding Secret Ingredients
When a company finds a way to produce commonplace items with new methods and materials, it can stand apart from the competition and gain an edge with consumers. This approach to branding is called product differentiation. According to Hubspot, “With product differentiation, companies have the ability to compete in areas other than price. They can be innovative in style, quality, features, etc. It’s up to the business to decide which area of differentiation will work best for their target markets.”
And at a time when environmental concerns are increasingly important to the public, eco-friendly product differentiation is particularly effective. Meta Foresight writes, “As sustainable products are becoming a marker of premium-ness, especially among Millennials and Gen Xers who are in or entering their prime spending years, forward-thinking brands focused on sustainable business practices are best positioned to capture consumer demand in 2022.” Here’s a look at two companies that reimagined their products’ ingredients list, which benefited their brands, consumers, and the planet.
Nutrition supplement startup EverGrain, a partner of beer conglomerate Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev, has found an inventive and sustainable way to make food healthier. “With centuries of brewing history, we’ve seen countless new connections and experiences built on a shared love of beer,” AB InBev’s website states. “We are committed to making beer part of life’s greatest moments for the next 100+ years.” And this dedication helped an AB InBev executive recognize the value hidden in the grains left over from the brewing process, grains the industry generally views as trash. Food Business News writes that in 2013, “Greg Belt, then leading a sustainability program for Anheuser-Busch InBev, became aware of ‘spent grains,’ which he calls a misnomer. ‘The brewers don’t capture all the nutrients that are there,’ he said. ‘What’s left is a great source of protein and fiber. We call it the golden remainder.’” That golden remainder is ripe with potential.
According to Fast Company, EverGrain is working to use “barley protein and fiber that breweries previously discarded during beer making to create novel, nutrient-rich products that can be used in milks, flour and meat alternatives.” This work is leading to some major innovations and renovations. “EverGrain is currently repurposing about 50 tons of barley each year at its $15 million small-scale production facility at Anheuser-Busch’s Newark, New Jersey, brewery,” according to Food Dive . “But an old 1905 fermentation cellar by its St. Louis brewery is in the process of being retrofitted at a cost of $100 million that will exponentially boost upcycled barley protein output to about 7,000 tons annually — allowing AB InBev to scale up its work.”
Although its production plans are big, EverGrain’s impact on the environment is small. An AB InBev press release quotes Jeffrey Brams, an executive at a food manufacturer that is adding EverGrain to its products, as saying, “[T]here’s no additional land or energy needed to grow EverGrain, and minimal water and energy are required to transform this nutritionally dense barley source into an exciting new plant protein.”
Like EverGrain, the founders of beauty brand Everist saw an opportunity to change the composition of everyday products, making them greener and more popular in the process. According to Beauty Independent, Everist is a “zero-waste brand from the minds of beauty industry veterans Jessica Stevenson, former general manager at Nude by Nature and senior marketing director at Revlon, and Jayme Jenkins, former VP of marketing and corporate responsibility at The Body Shop and L’Oréal.” The article goes on to say that before starting the company, Stevenson and Jenkins “talked frequently about their interest in pushing forward beauty’s environmental progress” and that their “interest turned into action as they ventured to create a shampoo and conditioner without the water that constitutes 70 percent-plus of typical formulas.” Their passion for and commitment to creating socially responsible hair-care products has been fruitful. “We have been incredibly selective with what goes into our plant-based formulas, reviewing every ingredient in detail and trying 100s of formulations to get them right,” according to Everist’s website. “Our formulas are vegan, cruelty-free, and free from parabens, sulfates, silicones, dyes and synthetic fragrances.”
These guilt-free products have also been good for sales. Forbes writes that “in April the brand became Climate Neutral Certified Carbon Neutral, in May they became available at Credo Beauty (debuting as number two haircare brand) — Credo is the ultimate testament to Everist’s sustainability promise as a brand who walks the talk, as it sets the clean beauty standard — and in July it became available at Well.ca, and sold out during launch.”
As EverGrain and Everist show, thinking about the planet when reinventing a product can be a sound way to get consumers on board and often brands must find new ways to connect with the public to remain competitive. “The importance of finding ways to stand out cannot be understated,” American Express explains. “Businesses need to introduce new offerings and increase sales of current solutions to a clientele that’s more informed about where it spends every dollar.”