Food & Grocery TitlesFood glorious food

AdMedia,  Mar 18, 2004  by Andrea Malcolm

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Sipping a flat white at ACP Media's pristine cafeteria, ACP director of consumer titles Debra Miller tries to explain the current success of food publishing. "It's pornography," she finally says. "There's just something about looking at beautiful food."

According to Fairfax Magazines editor-in-chief of lifestyle magazines Kate Coughlan, food is the new religion. However you choose to look at it, food is definitely hot with magazine readers.

New Zealanders are discovering new cuisines in their travels, confronting a wider selection of products in the supermarkets, and developing a greater appreciation of wine and food. The cafe scene is fuelling our appetites for eating well at home so it's not unusual to see panini toasters, rice cookers, and coffee-making machines in today's kitchens.

The topic has always been important to women's titles. In a recent press release trumpeting readership figures of almost a million, NZ Woman's Weekly publisher Wendy Bloxham homed in on the importance of reaching the household shopper and advertising support from grocery and food clients.

To sex up its food pages, Woman's Day publisher ACP recently lured Julie Biuso and Bob Campbell away from Cuisine to become Woman's Day food editor and Home & Entertaining wine editor. The appointments seem to signal moves by ACP to do more in the food publishing arena.

"We're assessing our operations across the group portfolio," says Miller. "We've made an investment bringing on Julie Biuso and Bob Campbell, even though we don't have a dedicated food and wine title to offer them and we're looking at opportunities. This might mean an extension of current titles or launching a new publication."

ACP titles with food content, Woman's Day, Home & Entertaining, Next and Your Home & Garden have a combined readership of 1.5 million but the relatively new genre of supermarket magazines is literally in the prime position to attract household shoppers.

Foodstuff's Essentially Food and Progressive Enterprises' Foodtown Magazine occupy retail real estate at the supermarket checkouts and carry the low cover prices of $3.95 and $3.75 respectively. Both enjoyed heady readership rises in 2003. Essentially Food climbed from 132,000 to 157,000 while Foodtown Magazine, increased from 192,000 to 204,000.

Essentially Food is four and a half years old and produced by a joint venture between Auckland-based Review Publishing (which also publishes grocery trade title FMCG) and New World owner Foodstuffs.

Review Publishing publisher Peter Mitchell says the entire print- run of 55,000 is bought by Foodstuffs and most of it goes into the supermarket chain's 130 stores. He describes it as "very middle-of- the-road" although Miller argues that with their high production values, the supermarket titles are skewed more towards the premium end of the market.

Foodtown Magazine publisher Tim Connell, who in the past has owned NZ Rugby World, NZ Fishing World, Creme, Rip It Up, NZ Business Times, and Telecom's Cable TV Magazine, has always had an eye on overseas publishing trends.On a trip to the UK he came across in- house publications for Sainsbury's and Waitrose supermarket chains and approached Foodtown-owner Progressive Enterprises about doing one here.

As well as being sold in Foodtown and Woolworths stores, Foodtown Magazine is sold through 1700 'regular' retail stores for $6.95. "I think we as publishers have been very innovative in a number of areas, including cooking classes and recipe cards," says Connell.

But what really gets him excited is the Foodtown Magazine People's Choice Awards launched last year. "The key point is that while in most cases products are awarded prizes on the basis of the selection of experts, all of our winners have been selected by everyday shoppers."

While much in the women's and grocery mags is concerned with doing the shopping, getting home and getting dinner on pronto, queen of the food titles Cuisine is firmly ensconced at the quality end of the market. The magazine, which last year was bought by Fairfax Magazines from founder Julie Dalzell, is now 18 years old and onto its 103rd issue.

Having raised readership from 336,000 in 2002 to 377,000 last year, Cuisine has just appointed Simon Wilson, who for 12 years edited Consumer Magazine, as the new editor over 49 other applicants.

Fairfax editor-in-chief of lifestyle magazines Kate Coughlan says while the food category is becoming highly competitive, especially in the lower end of the market, there hasn't been much competition at the high end. Competitors Vogue Entertaining & Travel and Gourmet Traveler, both Australian-based, are only sold in small numbers in NZ and meanwhile Cuisine is making inroads into Australia, selling 6000- 8000 per issue.

The magazine is aimed at the serious foody for whom food is a passion. "We're not talking about buying 500 grams of mince and throwing things into it. It's the ultimate cooking mag for people who are fascinated with food," says Coughlan. "We're very proud of being at the aspirational end of the food business and we take it very seriously."