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09.23.2004

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For more Hartman Group articles on FOOD CULTURE, click here...

August 05, 2004 "Snacking Our Way Through the Day: Food Culture in America"

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Asian Dinner Mixes & The Family Meal: evolving Food Culture

Packaged ethnic foods have the unique ability to meet several emerging needs in many American households, regardless of their ethnic background. They provide something "healthy" for dinner that is: very quick to prepare, easily customized to the increasingly restless, fragmented palates of American homes, adaptable to standard meat and vegetables already on hand at home, and enjoyable for increasingly independent children to make and eat by themselves.

1. Asian Food = Healthy Food

Thai and East Asian cuisines, especially, have developed a reputation for being "healthier" than traditional American dinner food, fast food, comfort food of all kinds and the highly cherished Italian and German-American dishes (the casseroles, the fettuccine alfredo, etc.) that fill recipe boxes around the country. These Asian cuisines increasingly receive equal footing with upscale Northern Italian and Spanish recipes in health-oriented cooking magazines like Cooking Light. We believe much of this health association is due to the fact that these foods do not have the fatty taste or the bulky mouth feel associated with classic American foods (e.g., burgers, fries, potato chips, casseroles, fatty meat dishes such as meat and steak), foods that have become associated with weight gain and general ill health by more and more Americans. Some of these health associations also have to do with packaging: Thai Kitchen's line of prepared foods uses transparent, plastic spice and oil packets to make food visible, thereby creating the illusion that the user is somehow combining fresh ingredients.

2. Asian Dinner Mixes are Extremely Quick to Prepare

For a long time, Ramen noodles used to be legendary on college campuses. And they haven't changed much. All you do is rip the cover off, pour in hot water and wait a few minutes for a tasty, albeit starch-heavy, meal to appear in its own disposable bowl. In today's market, Thai Kitchen's line of Noodle Cart meals-in-box has perfected super-fast Asian food like no one else. These dinner mixes are completely self-contained and require only hot water. They can function as someone's meal at home or as a meal on-the-go, wherever hot water can be had. The noodles soak in the box they come in. And they even come with their own forks!

3. Asian Dinner Mixes Adapt Well to a Fragmented Domestic Palate

Packaged ethnic foods seem uniquely adaptive to a cultural trend we've been tracking for a while now: the restaurantization of the family dinner. More and more households, including those with pre-teen kids, expect a much greater variety of foods for dinner at home. Sometimes they will actually go out to satisfy this need for something new. But families with children often don't feel able to do this (for financial and logistical reasons). They have increasingly turned their own kitchen into a restaurant where people order dishes from Mom or Dad. Or, because dinner together is increasingly rare, individual household members often either make their own food or have it prepared and left for them by a parent/guardian. And our in-depth, nationwide lifestyle interviews reveal that parents are increasingly accommodating the individualized taste preferences of very young children, instead of making them submit to a family palate controlled by the parents. These highly accommodating families, especially, need innovative, practical ways to liven up the at-home menu and please individual tastes....and quickly. Asian dinner mixes work well in a restaurant-like home kitchen, because they are purchased in a wide range of interesting tastes that are still distinctive to many Americans who don't know how to make them at home on their own, even if they had the time.

4. Asian Dinner Mixes Adapt Well to Whatever Veggies are in the Fridge

For those with more time to prepare dinner (30 minutes instead of 10 minutes), there are plenty of popular, Asian dinner mixes that allow consumers to add virtually any kind of vegetable or meat they have on hand. The key to the reliability and uniformity of the dining experience created by these food brands is really in the spice/oil packets and the texture of the main starch item. Many of these brands have therefore created the ultimate customizable dinner mix on the fly. This means that hurried parents don't need to go to the grocery store to experience a fresh meal that, in large part, came out of a box. These mixes are adept at undercutting any perceptions of being processed food.

5. Asian Dinner Mixes are Fun for Kids to Make and Eat

If there's one thing moms have learned from the McDonald's corporation, it's that kids like to play with toys when they eat. Asian foods can more than meet this desire when you think about the traditional dining paraphernalia associated with East Asia. Children beyond toddler-hood might very well love their own chopsticks, for example, if marketers would give them enough credit. If a 7-year-old in Shanghai can learn to use them, surely an 7-year-old in America can. And just imagine if they came decorated in Pokemon, Disney or other trendy iconography? If the kid can't figure out the chopsticks at first...heck...he at least has something new and cool to bang the table without scratching it!

Innovative retailers might even consider cross-merchandising kid-oriented ethnic dining paraphernalia of all kinds right next to the ethnically appropriate packaged food products. This approach could attract adults as much as children. Who wouldn't like to see attractive, low-priced imported Japanese noodle bowls in the grocery aisle? They may not buy bowls, but they'll certainly liven up all those interminable rows of cans, bottles and boxes.

Because of their modular nature and the use of rip-open packets, some Asian Dinner mix products are extremely easy for even young children to use. If kids can microwave some water and pour it into a bowl, parents can rest assured that their kids can make themselves some Pad Thai from the pantry. No scissors are necessary. Of course, they may make the mac and cheese instead, but isn't choosing all a part of the fun!

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