Cottage cheese: down, but not out

Dairy Foods, March, 1994 by Jerry Dryer

Cottage cheese--the "diet food of choice" for women of an earlier generation--has not even crossed the lips of many of today's health-conscious women. That is a harsh assessment, but it gets to the point. Marketers have only appealed to women on diets and they haven't put much energy into that appeal.

Per-capita sales today are barely more than half what they were at their peak: 5.4 lbs. per capita in 1972. Then, cottage cheese was the ultimate diet food. Add a leaf of lettuce and some canned cling peach slices and dieters loved it--for awhile. But cottage cheese gets pretty boring meal after meal after meal, so dairies made some feeble stabs at variety--adding fruit particles to the cottage cheese, even veggies. Then, they developed a lowfat variety to make a diet food more worthy of a dieter. And that was the beginning of the end. Instead of defending 4% cottage cheese as a light, low-calorie, lowfat menu item, processors cranked out a less-than-satisfactory "lower fat" version of an already lowfat food.

Meanwhile, the competition was heating up. Some blame yogurt, but even today less than one-third of the population eats yogurt. It didn't steal much business from cottage cheese. Bigger competition came from an ever increasing variety and availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, changing lifestyles, and on top of it all--a lack of aggressive marketing by dairies.

A new campaign

But marketing could pull us out of the current sales slump. Big and small dairies alike tell me: "When we run an ad in the newspaper on food day, cottage cheese sales increase." Some even report doubling of sales.

Of course, advertising is not a panacea, but it does offer an opportunity to close ranks and turn this category around. The International Dairy Foods Association is now launching a new marketing campaign. Themed "Cottage Cheese: The New Power Source," IDFA's aim is to increase awareness of cottage cheese in the minds of consumers. The campaign is designed to contemporize cottage cheese's image, and to give consumers new ideas about how to use cottage cheese as an ingredient.

IDFA has distributed cottage cheese press kits to food editors that include press releases containing nutritional information, serving ideas and background information about cottage cheese. The recipes use cottage cheese of all fat levels and offer some excellent usage ideas ranging from Mexican seafood lasagna to a baked potato topping.

The campaign is funded by voluntary contributions from cottage cheese manufacturers and their suppliers. So far, IDFA has raised about $90,000 and is about 75% of the way toward its fundraising goal of $120,000 for the first year. Investing processors represent about 60% of the nation's cottage cheese volume. Of the 36 companies participating, about 25% of them are suppliers to the cottage cheese industry. If you haven't already done so, it's time to ante-up to support this campaign.

The generic campaign also creates an excellent springboard for branded efforts. While cottage cheese awareness is heightened, tip in the sale with complimentary branded advertising, free-standing inserts, coupons, food day newspaper ads and in-store sampling.

Cottage cheese may be a venerable product in our industry, but to attract new consumers, it must be approached like a new product. Take advantage of the opportunity to introduce this "new product" to a brand new generation of consumers.

DRYER IS PRESIDENT OF THE JERRY DRYER GROUP, A FOOD CONSULTING AND FORECASTING FIRM BASED IN NORTHBROOK, ILL.