Already having led the way for the Caribbean in the popularisation of a range of canned agro-produced foods in parts of the United States and Europe, the highly accomplished Jamaican company, Grace Kennedy (GK) is further broadening the base of its convenience-food offerings to eight states in the USA, a move which the Jamaica Gleaner says will test just how much the American palate can handle the company’s aggressively spiced jerked wings.
Having already secured a prestigious position in both traditional West Indian shops and upmarket supermarket shelves in the metropolis, GK, it would appear, is pushing North American tastes ever further, relying on both the growing Jamaican and wider Caribbean diaspora as well as their offspring as well as the ‘West Indian-ized’ Europeans and North Americans who have cultivated a taste for the ‘spiced up’ Caribbean cooking.
The distribution for the ready-to-eat foods since the start of this year – inclusive of jerked wings and patties – embraces retail outlets in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. The wings are sold under the Grace brand in at least three variations – mild, spicy and honey jerk – while the patties maintain the Patty King label.
“Prior to ‘taking the plunge’ in the eight states, GK market-tested the wings and has already decided to expand their distribution to other parts of the US,” GK Foods International, Andrea Coy, is quoted in the Gleaner as saying. She said that with the Grace Brand being “very strong in the canned fish and meat category amongst the Caribbean diaspora in the USA,” the company is aiming to expand its portfolios beyond Caribbean consumers.
Through its major investments in extra-Caribbean marketing as well as its strategic target marketing, GK has long outstripped the rest of the Caribbean in terms of market share for West Indian foods in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Its success has also been attributed to the strong cultural impact of the Jamaican presence in both the USA and the UK as part of the wider Caribbean diaspora as well as the sense of aggressiveness with which ‘all things Jamaican’ is promoted outside the region.
Coy stated that the introduction of the ready-to-eat foods in the USA was preceded by research designed to help the company understand “consumption habits in some key food portfolios.” While the research determined that the American market was partial to barbecued wings, GK’s research indicated that there was an opportunity for more exotic flavors. The company says that feedback from its testing among groups from the English-speaking, Hispanic and mainstream markets indicated that its jerked wings has a “crossover appeal.”
GK owns 49 per cent of the shares in Majesty Foods, a Florida-based company, where both the patties and wings are produced.
The steady growth of the Caribbean population in both the USA and the UK, coupled with the popularisation of the Caribbean culture largely through phenomena like cricket, kaiso, and reggae and international superstars like Bob Marley, has created a strong platform for the promotion of Caribbean products in markets that far exceed those in the region. However, financial constraints of individual investors (the vast majority of regional food manufacturers are small to medium-sized companies that lack the resources for investment in costly extra-regional marketing) coupled with the failure on the part of regional governments to invest sufficiently in marketing has meant that few regional brands outside of GK have made any really significant mark on the food and food seasonings markets in the USA and the UK, despite the widespread popularity of Caribbean foods in those countries.
