Rather than curse the younger generation who are in the dark about how to cook, it’s better to light a candle and show them how to “get ’er done.” That’s the approach taken by two dairy companies, Kraft Foods and Land O Lakes. Dairy Foods honored each with an Editors’ Choice award in our Best New Dairy Products of 2012 program.
An engineer would say these dairy processors took a systems approach to product development. Kraft’s FreshTake is a cheese-and-bread-crumbs kit for making chicken cutlets (or escalope, if you want to move it upmarket). The home chef measures neither cheese nor crumbs nor seasonings. The protein (chicken or fish) and dry ingredients are mixed in a plastic bag so the chef never touches the raw meat. This product succeeds at the consumer level because it helps a cook solve a problem (how to make dinner quickly). It succeeds at the processor level because Kraft found a way to sell more cheese.