Who: Eatiful
Highlight package: Ad Hoc
Customer since: August 2024
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4 SKUs tested, 3 identified for US launch |
2 head-to-head formulations tested |
5 major US retailers |
Eatiful, a brand owned by Baltic manufacturer AB Kauno Grūdai, is known for its nutritious, homemade-style meals that are both delicious and incredibly convenient, making preparation quick and effortless. Their ready-to-eat organic products are made from sustainably grown ingredients sourced in Northern Europe, crafted with care in their R&D kitchen, and thoughtfully packaged to deliver the joy of simple, wholesome food–without the fuss.
The team at Eatiful came to Highlight for support with their latest launch, with Vilija Bartkuviene, Head of Sales for the US Market, and Monika Romaškaitė, Brand Manager & Product Owner at the helm.
Eatiful’s soups are already well-loved in European markets, but Vilija, Monika and their team knew US consumers were likely to have different preferences.
“As a European brand, it’s sometimes challenging to understand what US consumers think about our products,” explained Monika. “We were having internal discussions between us and our US team debating which flavor is better, so we decided that we needed neutral third-party data from a wider group of consumers.”
“We needed neutral third-party data from a wider group of consumers.”
Highlight proved to be the source of objective perspective they needed to understand US consumer wants and needs. Emma Steele, Disruptive Brands Partnerships Lead, attended the SFA Summer Fancy Food Show, where she introduced them to a solution that fit their needs for US market expansion - and she got to sample Eatiful’s soups.
The Eatiful team approached their research with two goals: to identify which SKUs to launch in the US, and to identify if any of these SKUs needed tweaking based on US consumer preferences.
Highlight’s Survey Blueprints for sensory testing made clear consumer preference for three out of four of the potential soup flavors, but it also gave the Eatiful team additional valuable insights.
“We were able to add a number of questions not only related to the flavor, but also to packaging, the serving size, and price,” said Vilija.
Many of these survey questions were open-ended or included fields for open-ended responses so that product testers were invited to provide additional thoughts and feedback.
“All these open-ended questions were very, very useful for us and helped us to get a general understanding of the market,” continued Vilija. “How does the consumer perceive the product? Is it acceptable? What do they like or dislike in those products? In addition, it allowed us to find out which added values are of a major importance to them. We are now using all of these responses in our presentations to clearly showcase the value and benefits of our products.”
“All these open-ended questions were very, very useful for us and helped us to get a general understanding of the market.”
“Not only that,” added Monika, “ but also what they think of the whole [soup] segment and our competitors in that category.”
Highlighters–what we call members of our product testing community–are carefully selected for a number of important qualities, among them their ability to provide in-depth, thoughtful responses to open-ended questions. (Learn more about the Highlight community.) Eatiful’s ability to dive deeper into this qualitative feedback to uncover hidden insights is a perfect example of why we prioritize recruiting articulate, engaged product testers to our community.
While Vilija and Monika oversaw their research with Highlight, they were also able to provide their Head of R&D with her own login so that she could access the data as well.
“She was involved in the process throughout, from the very beginning,” said Vilija, empowering both Brand and R&D teams to use consumer insights to inform their work and optimize their products for the US market together.
“Overall I love that the [data] is very extensive,” summarized Monika. “The whole process was super smooth, we felt like we could always contact the support team, and we could get whatever answers we needed.”
“The whole process was super smooth, we felt like we could always contact the support team, and we could get whatever answers we needed.”
Ultimately, Eatiful’s work with Highlight boiled down to the business results (soup pun intended). As Vilija put it, “Highlight helped us make the final decision on what we had to do and which way to move forward. That’s what we were looking for, that’s what we needed, and all the data from Highlight helped us make these decisions.”
Initial validation came quickly after the team attended trade shows following their formulation updates. “We made samples to take to trade shows and give visitors a taste,” said Vilija. “We heard that the soup was better than before, so that gave us double confirmation from the market, and reassured us we had chosen the right direction.”
Highlight even offered bonus feedback after receiving an initial shipment of product. Highlight handles all shipping and logistics–in other words, brands that use Highlight ship their product en masse to Highlight where the product is prepared and shipped to testers, including any blinding, refrigeration, or any other prep work needed.
“You all noticed we had a problem with the packaging for our samples,” said Monika. “It was too thin and breaking a bit, and you gave us a heads up that some of our packages had broken. It was a known problem and we were already working on it internally, but it was good to hear from you, because it showed you cared about our project deeply.”
“It was good to hear from you, because it showed you cared about our project deeply.”
The Highlight team absolutely cares about our customers’ projects, and we’re excited to see what happens next with Eatiful’s US launch in summer 2025. You can find them online on Amazon after July, on their ecommerce site eatiful.com, or in-store at Costco, Raley’s, Gelson's, and Grocery Outlet, with more retail partners to come as they look ahead to continued success on shelf.