Trend Alert: Think Win-Win with Cross-Branding

In the popular leadership book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People^®, author Stephen Covey identifies the win-win mentality as one of those habits. Covey describes win-win as “a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.” I can think of few greater examples of practicing “win-win” in business than by collaborating with a fellow local business to create a new product that highlights the best of both brands.

Cross branding is a marketing and product development tactic that continues to grow traction in the confectionery industry. The possibilities can stretch as far as your imagination allows, but here’s some inspiration.

Photo: Hilliard’s Chocolates

Craft Beer
RCI member, Hilliard’s Chocolates teamed up with a local brewery to create a craft beer collection featuring beer caramels and beer brittles. The popularity of micro-breweries has exploded in recent years, making it pretty likely there’s a nearby micro-brewery (or two, or three…) that would be happy to team up with your business to develop a unique, new product.

Photo: Stafford’s Chocolates

Wine
Even if you don’t live near California wine country, you may be surprised to find a local winery near you. According to vineyards.com, wine is produced in all 50 US states. Many wines make a great complement to a chocolate ganache center, like in the red wine chocolate truffles by RCI member Stafford’s Chocolates.

Photo: Rhéo Thompson Candies

Coffee
Partner with a local coffee roaster to develop a signature coffee flavor or a confection featuring their coffee. Known for their Mint Smoothie^®, RCI member Rhéo Thompson partnered with a local coffee roaster to develop a one-of-a-kind coffee blend featuring their signature flavor.

Photo: Vande Walle’s Candies

Dairy
Local dairy farms are a great opportunity for sourcing fresh cream and butter for your recipes. Don’t overlook goat milk as an alternative ingredient for customers with dairy allergies.

Photo: Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections

Fruits & Nuts
Is your region known for producing a specific fruit or nut? If so, you may not have to look too far to connect with local farmers to feature their products in your confections. You may even find this route to be more economical than sourcing those ingredients elsewhere.

Of course, developing a marketing and merchandising strategy is essential to make any cross-branding reach its full potential—you could also benefit by teaming up with the partnering company’s marketing team. Once your new product has been developed send out a press release to the local media announcing your partnership. Make sure to include the partnering company’s logo on your packaging and marketing materials, this will help to sweeten the deal for your partner and make it more likely they will help promote your product. Also, invite them to sell the product in their retail store and e-commerce site to promote the product to their network of followers.

Cross branding is a win-win for all those involved, but especially your customers when they get to enjoy the end result of your sweet collaboration!

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5 Confections Made Better with Sea Salt

Just when you think rich and buttery caramel couldn’t get any better, a dash of sea salt can take it to the next level. Marked as a hot flavor trend in 2008, this sweet and salty power couple continues to prove its staying power.

Chocolate-covered sea salt caramels are a customer-favorite for many RCI members. If you’re looking for new avenues to apply the magic of sea salt, keep reading for five confections that are even better with sea salt.

Credit: Bruce’s Candy Kitchen

Caramel Apples
Elevate your caramel apples with a drizzle of chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt. Not only does this application stimulate the taste buds, the addition of delicate sea salt crystals levels up the sophistication.

Credit: Bixby & Co.

Toffee
It just makes sense to pair buttery and nutty confections with a dash of high-quality sea salt. It’s no surprise toffee and sea salt are a winning combination.

Credit: Popped!

Caramel Popcorn
If you make caramel popcorn, a sprinkle of coarse sea salt crystals, like fleur de sel, can instantly elevate your product and add another variety to your product lineup. Invite customers to sample the new combo, touting “if you love our caramel popcorn, wait until you try it with sea salt!”

Salt Water Taffy
Aside from the flavor, coarse sea salt can add a welcome crunchy element to smooth and creamy confections like taffy. If you pull your own taffy, consider adding sea salt crystals towards the end of the production process so not to lose the texture of the sea salt.

Credit: Belmont Peanuts

Lemon Confections
Think twice before limiting lemon and sea salt to savory seafood dishes. This flavor combination is popular in Asian confections and can be seen in various applications in North America. If you’re looking for a more unexpected application, consider ways to incorporate sea salt with your lemon-flavored confections—such as a touch of sea salt to chocolate-covered lemon creams. Alternatively, we love this idea of lemon sea salt peanuts from Belmont Peanuts. Described as “a flavor match made in peanut paradise,” this pairing is worth a try!

Sea salt can instantly add value to confections, along with an undeniable punch of flavor and satisfying crunch. When adding a twist to any product, even if just a dash of salt, we highly recommend offering samples in-store and heavily promoting the new product (with photos, of course) on your website and social media outlets. Staging your salty, new products atop a generous mound of coarse sea salt crystals (think pink with pink Himalayan Sea salt, if you use it in your application) can both be visually appealing and reinforce the message even if the consumer doesn’t read the description.

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tips for Building A Signature Trail Mix

 

Offering ready-to-enjoy trail mix is a great opportunity to create everyday snacking options, in addition to your special occasion gift options. Snacks, in general, are experiencing substantial growth right now. More specifically, 32% of consumers claim their household is purchasing more trail mix since the COVID-19 outbreak.

While the options are seemingly limitless, typically a successful trail mix hits three categories: (1) nuts and seeds, (2) dried or freeze-dried fruit and (3) something fun or indulgent. This last category is where confectioners can really put their unique spin on a mix.

In an article published in RCI’s Kettle Talk magazine, Charlotte Green with Barry Callebaut U.S.A., Inc. recommends to, “take your most popular confections and either miniaturize them or deconstruct the flavors and combine with fruits and nuts to make a trail mix for chocolate lovers. Chocolate-coated graham crackers can build a s’mores trail mix, caramel turtles can be the inspiration for a caramel apple pie trail mix, or a simple mini peanut butter cup can be part of a PB&J trail mix. Get creative! 42% of consumers consider their favorite flavor most important when buying nuts, seeds or trail mix.”

Trail Mix Mendiants

For a more upscale spin on trail mix, create trail mix mendiants. Mendiants are a French confection consisting of a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits. Make your own by adding your favorite trail mix ingredients to small pools of milk, white or dark chocolate before they set.

With the arrival of fall around the corner (“hello” to fall hiking, campfires and football games) and National Trail Mix Day on August 31, we can’t think of a better time than now to start experimenting with different trail mix combinations.

If you’re at a loss for what trail mix combinations would get the most interest out of your customer base, start by asking some of your loyal customers or create a poll on Facebook. By inviting consumers to share their input, not only can you more easily meet their needs, you’re more likely to get buy-in and interest in a new product from consumers who participated in the ideation process.

Happy trails to you!

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Quick Guide to Nuts & Chocolate Pairings

Chocolate is always a nice treat, but with the addition of nuts comes key proteins and nutrients, good fats, antioxidants and more!

This week we’re sharing some easy guidelines for pairing nuts with dark, milk, white and ruby chocolate.

Dark chocolate: For nuts that have distinct flavors on their own, such as almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts and pecans, it is best to pair them with rich dark chocolate. Like dark chocolate, many nuts are considered to be superfoods. 

Milk chocolate: What doesn't go with milk chocolate? Peanuts and milk chocolate are a classic combination. Walnuts also go really well with milk chocolate, because they have a bit milder flavor.

White chocolate: You will often find macadamia nuts paired with white chocolate, due to their very mild flavors. Cashews and white chocolate are another popular pairing.

Ruby chocolate: Ruby chocolate’s intense berry flavor pairs well with a variety of nuts, including almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, peanuts, pecans, pine kernels, pistachios and walnuts.

Standing on their own nuts and chocolate are tasty indeed, but when paired together their even better!

Crave more? If you like what you read here, look for the "Subscribe now" box on the right to enter your email address and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's Tip of the Week blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

How to Avoid Bloom when Coating Nuts

As consumers, we love chocolate-covered nuts because they represent multiple craveable characteristics. Crunchy—check! Sweet and salty—check! Plus, as a good source of protein and healthy fats, they are often categorized as being a healthier and more satisfying treat!

However, when combining nuts and chocolate in confections fat bloom often presents problems caused by oil migration. Oil migration between the chocolate and nut or nut paste leads to changes in the quality of the confection, such as visible surface bloom, hardening of the filling and softening of the chocolate.

While oil migration is inevitable when pairing chocolate and nuts together, the following techniques will help avoid or slow oil migration, pulled from past education led by Guittard Chocolate Company and the Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board at RCI’s Fall Regional Conference in Portland, Oregon.

• If using roasted hazelnuts, use a two-step roasting process.
• Select a chocolate with a fine particle size.
• Ensure the chocolate is well-tempered.
• When adding hazelnuts or hazelnut paste to tempered chocolate, the temperature of the hazelnuts should be within 1-2˚F of the temperature of the tempered chocolate.
• A thicker layer of chocolate around a hazelnut or hazelnut filling slows oil migration, bloom formation and textural change.
• Double enrobing with cooling between layers.
• Consider the shape and design of the confection to limit thin spots of coating.
• During storage, limit temperature fluctuations.

With these expert tips for fighting bloom caused by oil migration, you can create truly craveable treats using hazelnuts and other nuts. RCI members: Login at retailconfectioners.org/pasteducation to access this and other education recordings from past RCI events.

Crave more? If you like what you read here, look for the "Subscribe now" box on the right to enter your email address and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's Tip of the Week blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Tip #273: Don’t Skip This Step When Roasting Nuts

Not only do roasted nuts add satisfying crunch and crave-worthy sweet and salty flavors to chocolate confections, the pungent aroma of freshly roasted nuts, alone, can lure nearby shoppers into your candy store. This week’s brief tip, shared during RCI’s Chocolate Boot Camp^®, is a must for candy makers who roast their own nuts.

REDUCE THE RISK OF BLOOM

To reduce the risk of fat bloom, due to fat migration, wait at least 48 hours to coat roasted nuts with chocolate. This practice allows the oils to reabsorb into the nuts. Keep in mind, dry roasted and whole nuts will have less free fat than those that are oil roasted.

STOP CRACKS IN THEIR TRACKS

Waiting to enrobe roasted nuts will also help lessen the chances of unwanted cracks in these chocolate-covered morsels. Quick and easy tips like these will help ensure your nutty delights look and taste as good as they smell!

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