US protein-based pancake mix maker Flapjacked has just launched its second product – muffins – to try to tap into growing demand for on-the-go protein products. Launched in 2012 by husband and wife team David and Jennifer Bacon in 2012, the company believes consumers do not just want protein but better-for-you products. Hannah Abdulla learns more.
| BITESIZE STATISTICS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name: | Flapjacked | |
| Founded: | 2012 | |
| Products: | Pancake and Baking Mix; Mighty Muffins | |
| Markets: | US, Canada, MENA (New), Northern Europe (New) | |
just-food: Consumer interest in protein is intensifying. Has this helped Flapjacked's growth?
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David Bacon: It's definitely helped but people are looking for more than just protein. Protein can sometimes taste good and sometimes it doesn't. People are now looking for protein in a familiar form; a pancake, a muffin, but a healthier version of it. You'll see a lot of companies turning their products into something that is just that little bit better. The pancake segment was very stale – there are a couple of players that have been in it since the 1800s and haven't changed their product at all. What we bring is the familiar form of a pancake but it's better all round from cleaner ingredients to no added sugars and we add protein to it. We do find the protein trend is very hot but also consumers are just looking for something that is better-for-you.
j-f: How much of the recent shift in consumer interest toward protein-fortified snack foods led to Flapjacked's launch of Mighty Muffins?
Bacon: With Mighty Muffins the launch is actually consumer driven. Consumers were too – for lack of a better word – lazy to fire up the griddle in the morning. We had a lot of college students that would take the mix, add water in a coffee mug and put it in the microwave. They were calling it mug cakes. College students are doing this with everything; they want the food and the protein and nutrients but they want it quicker and on-the-go so we looked at whether we could do this in a different way – not with a pancake but something different – still use the base baking mix but for a brownie or a muffin. Our consumers led us that way, they want protein and on-the-go. We are finding there is a burnout on the bars and shakes…so we think Mighty Muffins fits in very well with that segment of people trying to get a bit of protein on the go.
j-f: Muffins becomes your second category. Is this in line with what you intended when Flapjacked first set out?
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By GlobalDataBacon: At first, it was just a pancake we set out to launch. Then we realised our consumers and us were using it in many different ways. Our website has hundreds of recipes for bread, doughnuts, to crepes and pizza crust so we switched the name around on our second round of packaging to 'baking mix'.
j-f: Are there plans for more protein-infused, better-for-you products?
Bacon: Now I can't tell you all our secrets! We are excited about the muffins right now – the reception from retailers has been fantastic. We've launched across 3,000 GNC nutritional stores in the US and we've added a couple of thousand other retailers. That's before launch so we think there is huge demand here for portable protein that is not a bar, shake or jerky.
j-f: What prompted the idea behind Flapjacked?
Bacon: We like to take the kids camping and hiking. A lot of times in the morning they were eating carbs and calories and they would get carb-crash. So, in trying to get a bit more protein in their diets, my wife started stealing the protein powder from my shakes and putting it in the baking mixes. They wouldn't know it but it bumped their protein up and they felt fuller longer. But the protein powders are full of additives and fillers and we wanted to make something a bit cleaner. We started fortifying our products using a whey protein isolate which is clean, pure and cooks real easy. We found that it makes very good pancakes and went from there.
j-f: The growing consumer demand for protein hasn't gone unnoticed by larger companies and many have got in on the action. What has that been like for you?
Bacon: I think its better for everyone that consumers are made aware protein is an essential nutrient and having more protein, less carbs, less sugars, less fat, is better. I'm glad to see more of it go mainstream. I do see a lot of competitors in baking and other categories calling out the protein but not doing anything about it. You'll see many products that say 'now with more protein' but they've gone from two grams to three grams, so they haven't really done much – the companies are just calling it out because it's trendy. Protein is not cheap and a lot of companies have figured out its easier to fill their product with refined sugars and other processed things than it is to put in clean, pure protein.
j-f: With which companies would you say you compete?
Bacon: I don't think we have a true competitor in that sense – we find people will always eat pancakes but they may switch over to something that is better-for-you, now that we are there. We've been asked what happens if Kellogg or [PepsiCo's] Aunt Jemima or [General Mills'] Bisquick come out with a protein-infused pancake mix. We think we are standing out as a brand that stands for healthy nutritious, better-for-you and protein infused products. When we develop products our nutritional panel is where we start off. Obviously we want the food to taste delicious but we go straight to the nutrition panel, we want something healthy and balanced, something we feel good about feeding our kids. So we try to keep the calorie count down, we don't add sugars or artificial flavours, we try to keep it non-GMO, we want to keep the protein level up and we want to make sure something we put in our bodies is something we want to put in our kids' bodies too.
j-f: What was Flapjacked's turnover for its most recent financial year?
Bacon: For the full financial year it was US$3-5m and for the next financial year we forecast it to be two-to-three times what it was this year.
j-f: You have a presence in the US and Canada, anywhere else in the world you have your eye on?
Bacon: Across North America at the moment I believe we are pushing 7,000 stores. We're keen to increase distribution. Last week we added two new distributors, one based out of Netherlands that will cover northern Europe and the other out of Dubai that will cover the MENA region. We did have a very limited presence in some parts of Europe but the demand has become so high we had to involve larger distributors. We're now looking at listing in about 900 stores. What we find with Europe is that we can compete despite high shipping costs because we have such a high quality unique product. It is something that hasn't been found there. We get a lot of international requests because there is nothing like what we offer and it is not available to consumers there.
We also have our eye on the Australia market. We get requests every day from there and I believe we have a strong opportunity, we just need to get the proper distribution in place. We are in talks with one or two distributors but want to make sure we set up the proper partnerships first. We are very excited about expanding our brand globally.
