Mug Cake : how Dr Oetker speaks to French and German consumers.

Some years ago, Herta launched a ready to bake cake dough : open the pack, fill a cake mould, put in the oven and bake.

With its mug cake, Dr Oetker is increasing the preparation with one step (add milk) but offering a much more convenient and friendly use : mix the powder in a mug with milk in a mug, and put in the microwave.

Interestingly, the product looks totally different in Germany and France. On one hand, the German name is "Tasse Küchlein", which one could translate as "the small comfort cake in a cup" with a packaging emphasizing the cake, the aroma, the comfort food.The cake itself is not perfect, like a hand made one, as expected.

 On the other hand, the French one plays on the easy to use and speedy preparation (name is "gateau minute" = minute cake, strong microwave picture...), with a quite "industrial" packaging where the cake's picture looks like coming out from the Dr Oetker factory.

Let see how both countries respond to it !

Premium cake mix from the House of the Rising Bun

Still some years ago, cake mixes were made for people who had not time to cook and / or no knowledge and / or no imagination AND were definitly not foodies.

This  definitly evolving with the apparition of premium cakes mix, targeting foodies who want to prepare something great, if possible new, but keeping the challenging part of cooking and DIY. The idea of these mixes is to facilitating cooking, not by providing aroma and other stabilizer, but by enabling to have all the high quality ingredients in the same pack.

This is exactly the case with the House of the Rising Bun, a seducing UK company... ( http://www.houseoftherisingbun.co.uk/)

 

Ktichen cupboard cookie mix

Boites Gourmandes (ie gourmet boxes) is a rather young french company selling cookies mix that you can trust. What you buy is a  box filled with about 4-5 ingredients (flour, chocolate piece, baking powder...) that are carefully layered so you can differenciate them.

The concept is not new, but they were quite clever to use a transparent plastic, which does not recall the premium quality of the glass bottles usually used for these products, but more the kind of boxes you can find in your own kitchen.

So, at the end, you don't buy a cookie mix, but all the ingredient you would buy to cook from scratch, just packed together.

Instant BBQ + spices kit : a further step in convenience grilling

Who has never experienced the "Let's do a quick grill, we don't need many things" ending in "I bought half of the spices and sauces sortiment of the shop because I did not know what do to for a marinade"?

Bar-Be-Quick, UK manufacturer of instant grill then had the idea to pair with Schwartz to offer pack of herbs and spices with their instant grills.

Will the next step be to find the instant grill in the frige area of shop with spices and meat?

Upgraded Mac & Cheese from Feuer und Glas

Who never ate the famous Macaroni and cheese from Kraft? Cheap, easy, quick, (tasty?), this might be the perfect dish in many occasions, that many brands try to imitate. But, like with Coke or Nutella, there is only one which taste original...

Feuer und Glass, a German company specialyzed in high quality condiments, then decided to target much higher in quality, for an of course much higher price.They propose combo of spaghetti with cheese, but also with fonghi, pesto, carbonara and other varieties,

But don't we want the delicious taste of industrial food when we eat mac & cheese?

1 year food for 4 person at Costco

In his Emergency Kits and Supplies Food dept, Costco has a quite interesting package : for 4000 USD, you get 30 144 servings (ie 14 cents / serving) which "include great-tasting foods from each of the THRIVE categories, grains, fruits, veggies, meats and beans, dairy, baking essentials, drinks, and even dessert ensuring that you have the necessary variety and nutrition".

This kit is manufactured by the company Thrive, which is specialyzed in Emergency Food (http://www.thrivelife.com/). And what is good is you don't need to buy already the 1 year / 4 people kit, they have smaller set for 3 days or 1 week, which can actually be quite useful.

By the way, the food has a shelf life of 25 years, so don't be desperate if there is no Earth meltdown in the next 24 ones...

Supersec : a fresh view of dehydrated products

When thinking dehydrated products, one always have in mind old fashioned soup packs, which taste like our student life and are useful in case of illness or emergency in the kitchen... Well, we would advise to go on the Supersec website : https://supersec.com/en/ . This company, based in Belgium, is producing dehydrated products, especially mushrooms, and is proud to do so. Their website is not only a design jem, but also a great manifest against the "dictatorship of fresh". The global idea behind is  is the following principle:" a dried product (mushrooms for example) is not merely a desperate stopgap measure for dealing with the fresh product, but rather an enhanced version of that product.  It’s not less, but more".