How Highline Mushrooms plans to connect with new and younger consumers

Kelly Hale says working in produce “gets into your blood and you can't walk away.” The 25-year veteran of the produce industry currently serves as vice president of sales, marketing and supply chain for Highline Mushrooms.

Although Hale started on the research and development side, she transitioned to sales, as she enjoyed working with people to understand and help solve their challenges.

Hale joined Highline about two years ago, when she says the team presented an opportunity to help grow the mushroom category and the team.

“What I saw was the opportunity to further develop the team, expand the team and have operations all across Canada," she said. "We're currently in three provinces — Ontario, Alberta and [British Columbia] — and we're working to gather the best and the brightest and work toward increasing our market share and increasing consumption.

“The company gave me the opportunity to create new strategies, so it's been very exciting, as well as rewarding," she added.

Hale's work includes an effort to rebrand the mushroom company and extend its reach to new and younger consumers.

“In the past five years or so, there's been a general decline in mushroom consumption in all of North America," she said. "People hear that and ask how it could be. People love mushrooms. They're healthy, they're versatile, they're flavorful, which is all true, but looking at the demographics, the heavy users of mushrooms are an older age group, and some of them are aging out, so that might be a factor in the decline."

Another reason could be reduced consumption after the pandemic. While consumers were spending more time preparing meals at home, as well as searching for recipes and trying to find ways new ways and different things to do, home cooking took more of a backseat after the pandemic, Hale says.

The company looked at those two trends — demographics of buyers and changes in the industry — and thought about what it could do.

“We at Highline took a look at demographics and decided we wanted to start engaging with the younger demographics, the 25-35-year-olds," Hale said. "We know how they're gaining information — through their phone or apps or online — and they are searching for recipes. They're looking for useful ideas. They're looking for nutritional information. They want to know where everything came from. They're the first to go to their phone and look something up and Google it."

Along the same lines, Hale says, the company took a look at its brand.

“If you look at the mushroom category and its packaging, it's a terribly bland background; it's either white or light brown," she said. "So, we looked at that and asked, ‘What could we do differently?'”

The first thing the company did was transition to clear tills or clear trays, according to Hale.

“It's done most everywhere else in the world except North America," she said. "And we decided that if a consumer can see what they're buying and can see the quality is there, they'll be more inclined to buy it.

“If you look at the produce category, mushrooms is probably the last item that's not in a clear container," Hale added. "You wouldn't think about buying strawberries nowadays in anything but a clear container, but years ago it was in a colored container or even those little cardboard containers. So, the entire berry industry went that way. The entire tomato industry has gone that way. You're buying salad greens where you can see the product. All of these containers are clear, except mushrooms, so we embarked on changing that.”

The change was quickly accepted in Canada, Hale says. Highline then began explaining the benefits of clear and partnering with retailers in the U.S.

“If consumers can see what they're buying, they will buy more, and that's been accepted very well in the [U.S.],” she said.

Hale says the next step of the transition was the opportunity clear packaging offered: Since the consumer could see the product, it allowed for more information or graphics on the top.

“Since you can see the mushrooms on the bottom, you're not covering up the only visual on top," she said. "We started to have some fun with it and asked, ‘If we're going after these demographics, what are the things that we want to convey?' And we wanted to convey that eating mushrooms is super and fun and engaging. So, we came up with our new rebrand based upon that.”

The rebrand, “Eat Super. Feel Super,” has given the company a chance to build off of the new slogan.

“We're launching it in, probably, mid-April nationwide. We have it in a couple of test areas right now, and it's very well accepted, and people have been getting behind it," Hale said. "Some of our retail partners have even wanted backup material that they can put up in the store, or if they have a store opening, we actually have some mushroom people that are life-sized cardboard cutouts that some retailers have used for store openings. So, it's just been fun.”

Last summer the company did a nationwide customer survey about sustainability, Hale says. One question was whether a consumer would be more inclined to buy a mushroom in a clear, rather than colored, container. About 72% of those surveyed said yes.

"We took the survey to an area where we kind of own the mushroom category and are selling to multiple retailers in that area," she said. "When asked the same questions, 92% — people already buying our mushrooms — responded that they wanted clear containers and wanted it now.”

Because these were existing customers, Hale says a 20-point higher response was overwhelmingly supportive of clear packaging for mushrooms.

“We realized we were onto something very exciting," she said.

Whether rebranding with clear packaging, a new tagline and more room for fun information on the labels or engaging on social media, Hale says Highline is increasing consumption across the board.

“We trying to increase consumption and get people excited about mushrooms, while engaging the next generation coming up," she said.