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The company is expanding its Florence Street Bakery project. |
BOSTON — Consumers will soon be able to find Udi’s gluten-free bakery products in the in-store bakery, said Steve Hughes, chief executive officer of Boulder Brands. Tests with such retailers as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Kroger have proven successful and the company is on the cusp of expanding it to other retailers.
“With the exception of Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and some Kroger divisions, Udi’s is in the frozen food aisle,” Mr. Hughes said Sept. 3 during a presentation at the Barclays Back-To-School Consumer Conference. “It’s not in the bakery. You’ve got to go over to aisle 12, between pizzas and popsicles, to find your Udi’s bread.”
Named the Florence Street Bakery project, the effort involves delivering the Udi’s product to the retail store frozen and then slacking it out.
“This is very exciting because people buy baked goods in the bakery,” Mr. Hughes said. “Ironically, 25% of everything you see in that bakery section is delivered to the store frozen and slacked out. So we think this is an important new dimension.
“One of the key components of this is the loaf of bread is a large loaf of bread, overcoming one of the key issues of current gluten-free products, which is a pretty small loaf of bread. So, again, we’re pretty excited about this. The velocities and our work where we actually have the current Udi’s items in the bakery section are 50% higher. We think this is going to be highly incremental and could be a bit of a game-changer because I think it could bring a lot of new users into the franchise.”
