In support of its goal to double sales this year, Elmhurst 1925 launched three new product lines this month that take the New York-based plant milk brand into new categories including coffee and tea lattes and smoothie mixes, as well as making a deeper play into creamers.
Speaking with BevNET today, Elmhurst CMO Peter Truby said the products will help Elmhurst reach new consumers and expand its existing presence on store shelves in its current retail partners.
After launching 11 oz. single-serving flavored oat milk products at Winter Fancy Food Show 2020 in January, Elmhurst is looking to expand further into grab-and-go beverage sets with oat milk lattes. The new line features two coffee-based SKUs (Cacao and Flash Brew) and two tea-based products (Matcha and Golden Milk). Each will retail for $4.49 per 11 oz. carton and will be available in stores and online.
According to Truby, Elmhurst chose flash-brewed coffee for its lattes to better differentiate the products from its cold brew coffee competitors. Popularized in Japan, flash brewing — a process in which coffee is brewed hot but quickly chilled without diluting with ice or water — has emerged in the RTD space the past few years thanks to brands such as Verve and Boss Coffee. Truby said the method creates a less bitter flavor with a smoother taste.
“The cool thing about the lattes is, while I think it’s very in line with our brand, it really does bring us to different consumers than I think have ever encountered Elmhurst,” Truby said. “It maybe skews a little bit younger, so we’re excited to introduce people to the brand through this.”
Though Elmhurst has previously released coffee and tea-adjacent products with its barista blends and hemp creamer lines, the lattes represent the company’s first beverage produced in-house. Though the brand has previously supplied its plant-based milk to coffee maker Bluestone Lane, Truby said Elmhurst has largely avoided direct plays beyond the dairy alternative space until now. The company intends to focus on single-serve products for the line, but Truby said multi-serve packaging variations, along with new flavor innovations, are not off the table in the future.
“It used to be that you would find plenty of plant-milk RTDs coming from coffee companies, but you’re now seeing plant-milk companies get into the space as well,” Truby said. “[Our lattes] are super clean label, like all our products, much lower sugar and twice the protein of our competitors; So I do think we put our best foot forward in a crowded category.”
While the lattes will help Elmhurst to expand through single-serve use occasions, the company has also broadened its portfolio with new multi-serve items.
Taking cues from consumer research which showed its plant milk products are frequently used for smoothies, Elmhurst has launched a line of Superfood Smoothie Bases. The new products will be available in 32 oz. cartons and contain zero added sugar. Each SKU provides different functional benefits — Kale is made with oat and hemp milk and contains Omega-3s; Cacao features hazelnut and almond milks and includes 50 mg of caffeine and is keto friendly; and Turmeric Ginger uses oat and hemp milk and contains 16 mg of curcumin for anti-inflammatory benefits.
Truby said the line will help Elmhurst expand to new parts of the store shelf and has encouraged retailers to merchandise the products in the produce section, rather than alongside Elmhurst’s plant milks. The company also believes online sales will be strong due to the “habitual nature” of at-home smoothie makers.
Finally, following last year’s launch of hemp creamers, Elmhurst has released a new oat creamer line in Unsweetened, Hazelnut, French Vanilla and Chai Spice varieties, with seasonal flavors including Apple Pie Spice, Gingerbread and Lavender Vanilla slated for release later this year. The line will retail for $5.99 per 16 oz. carton. Each serving contains at most 1 gram of sugar and 15 calories.
“We are super proud of our hemp creamers — first on the market, very clean and very innovative — but hemp we fully admit is an acquired taste, I like to say hemp is where kombucha was 10 years ago,” Truby said. “So in the meantime, we looked into [oat milk] and decided it was worth launching because we really could make a difference from everything else on the market.”
The new product launches come as Elmhurst expands nationwide with a retail footprint of about 6,000 doors. The brand is currently available in retailers including Whole Foods Market, Wegmans, Bristol Farms, Gelson’s, Publix, Fairway and Shaws. Truby said the company grew sales 50% in 2019 and expects to double its sales in 2020. Much of its expansion, he said, will be focused on the West Coast.
Though he noted concerns about the spread of the coronavirus have hampered public-facing marketing efforts, Truby said Elmhurst is embracing experiential marketing campaigns in order to reach new and younger audiences. The brand was supposed to have a presence at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas this month prior to its cancellation but will move ahead with video advertising campaigns. In January, the company opened a pop-up cafe in New York City.
“When you have a product that needs a lot of education like ours to really explain how we make it differently and how we can make a product with fewer ingredients than our competitors, that demands a more intimate relationship with the consumer whenever possible,” Truby said. “So if we can do something more experiential and get people to talk to a brand ambassador and see how the product can be used in coffee or cooking or smoothie applications, that goes much further for us. We have a better story, but we have a longer story [than our competitors] and sometimes we need a little more intimate interactions to explain it.”