From the Dalgona Whipped Coffee Craze of 2020 to 2021’s Baked Feta Pasta of 2021 to last year’s numerous Butter Board variations, TikTok has become the go-to for untraditional recipes to reach world-wide popularity. The surge in popularity of recipes on the short-form video platform has even spawned the hashtag #FoodTok, used to identify food-related content and its creators. But just because a TikTok video recipe received millions of views, did it have an impact on what consumers purchased? Instacart did a deep dive on the top 2022 viral TikTok recipes and its impact on grocery shopping in its report, 2022 Delivered: Did Anyone Actually ‘Cart’ That #FoodTok Recipe? In the analysis, the internet-based grocery delivery and curbside pickup service company selected 20 of the most watched TikTok recipes from 2021 through 2022 and reviewed its own corresponding purchase data (which reflects millions of grocery transactions across the U.S. and Canada) to uncover whether people actually “carted” the ingredients featured in the recipes. What it found, in a nutshell, is that “Not All Food Trends are Created Equal,” meaning that TikTok virality does not necessarily translate into widespread adoption. Three categories were created to illustrate a recipe’s overall influence: “Movers and Shakers,” which were viral TikTok recipes with significant views and a large spike in Instacart orders; “Pint-Sized Powerhouses,” which were food trends that had a smaller magnitude of virality but still resulted in a noticeable spike in Instacart orders; and “All Sizzle, No Steak,” food trends that were massively viral but didn’t have a noticeable impact on Instacart orders. For example, the now infamous Baked Feta Pasta (the most viewed video of it hitting 19 million hits) fell into the “Movers and Shakers” category, with its basic ingredients of feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, and pasta bought at a rate 4.6 times higher than normal at the height of its popularity. The Biscoff Tiramisu or Lasagna, which was not quite as widespread but still hit 5.1 million on its most viewed video, landed in the “Pint-Sized Powerhouses” since its ingredients were purchased at two times the normal rate during its virality. The Butter Board trend, however, despite its most-watched video garnering 13 million views, did not seem to move the needle up much at all in ingredient sales. However, despite the fact that not all viral TikTok recipes create a noticeable surge in sales, the inclusion in one can only help.
With that in mind, iconic mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s might be have the right idea by creating a page solely dedicated to this trend on its website called “Viral TikTok Recipes.” The name is self-explanatory, however, the recipe versions showcased, which all use mayonnaise as a featured ingredient, are copycat ones created by the condiment company rather than the original ones that went viral.
In an article about the TikTok dedicated featured page in PR Week, director of dressings at Unilever North America (Hellmann’s parent company), Chris Symmes stated: “TikTok viral recipes continue to be at the forefront of social media, traditional media and culture as a whole. We’re seeing a huge increase in SEO searches for these viral TikTok recipes and as a kitchen staple.”
Some companies are taking these #FoodTok recipes a step further by manufacturing and branding them for commercial sale. Modern Retailer recently highlighted two new products hitting grocery stores that were inspired by viral TikToks. Remember the Pepto-Bismol colored condiment that made the rounds on social media? The creator has partnered up with Dave’s Gourmet and last month launched its “Pink Sauce” at 4,300 Walmart locations and online at Walmart.com exclusively until July. And at least two commercial versions of mini-pancake cereal (which was trending on TikTok at the peak of the quarantine) are hitting the supermarket shelves – one a blueberry version that is a collaboration between IHOP and General Mills and the other a more traditional one from the boutique brand, Belgian Boys. Like I keep saying, if you are not harnessing the power or influence that TikTok has to offer, you’re missing out on one of the best resources at hand.
The proof, as the saying goes, is in the pudding. Except in the case of the Kellogg’s “InGrained” program, where it’s actually in the cereal. About a year ago I wrote about the CPG company’s $2 million, five-year initiative in which the Battle Creek, MI-based manufacturer would be providing training opportunities in irrigation management, nutrient management, and soil health to its partner rice farmers in the Lower Mississippi River Basin to help them reduce the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions they produce. As a reward for transitioning into more climate-friendly practices, Kellogg’s committed to giving them $20 per ton of GHG abatement that they accomplish. Early results from its pilot year are in and they sound quite promising. Since its launch last year, the program helped its farmer participants achieve a reduction of more than 1,600 metric tons of greenhouse gases – the equivalent of taking more than 345 gasoline-powered cars off the road for one year. The program in Northeast Louisiana – in collaboration with agricultural greenhouse gas measurement firm Regrow Ag, rice producers, Kellogg supplier Kennedy Rice Mill LLC, and agribusiness firm Syngenta – and will be making adjustments as they transition into the second year of the initiative. Kellogg is also exploring expanding the program to include various regions with different weather patterns and soil types to determine if similar positive impacts can be found. “Kellogg’s Better Days environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy is committed to supporting 1 million farmers and reducing Scope 3 GHG emissions across our value chain by 15 percent by the end of 2030,” said Janelle Meyers, Kellogg Company’s chief sustainability officer. “Programs like Kellogg’s “InGrained” contribute to this ambitious goal, create positive impacts on the planet and support the livelihoods of farmers who grow the rice for some of our most iconic foods.”
Earlier this month, Google announced four new and updated technologies to assist retailers. The first is new shelf-checking AI powered by two machine learning models—a product recognizer and tag recognizer—that enables retailers to identify products of all types, at scale, based solely on the visual and text features of a product, and then translate that data into actionable insights. The second one is an AI-powered browse feature in its Discovery AI solutions for retailers that uses machine learning to select the optimal ordering of products on a retailer’s ecommerce site once shoppers choose a category. Over time, the AI learns the ideal product ordering for each page on an ecommerce site using historical data, optimizing how and what products are shown for accuracy, relevance, and likelihood of making a sale. The feature can be used on a variety of ecommerce site pages, from browse, brand, and landing pages, to navigation and collection pages. The third new retailer-centric innovation Google introduced is an AI-driven personalization capability that customizes the results a customer gets when they search and browse a retailer’s website by incorporating a product-pattern recognizer that uses a customer’s behavior on an ecommerce site to determine shopper taste and preferences and then moving products that match those preferences up in search and browse rankings for a personalized result. A shopper’s personalized search and browse results are based solely on their interactions on that specific retailer’s ecommerce site, and are not linked to their Google account activity. The fourth new technology revealed is a set of upgrades to its Google AI Recommendation service that can make a retailer’s ecommerce properties even more personalized, dynamic and helpful for individual customers. This includes: a new page-level optimization feature that now enables an ecommerce site to dynamically decide what product recommendation panels to uniquely show to a shopper, minimizes the need for resource intensive user experience testing, and can improve user engagement and conversion rates; a recently added revenue optimization feature which uses machine learning to consider the product categories, item prices, and user behavior on an e-commerce site in order to determine the ideal balance between customer satisfaction and revenue growth and thus offers better product recommendations that can lift revenue per user session on any ecommerce site; and a new “buy it again” model harnesses a customer’s past purchases to suggest future follow-up purchases.
The announcement of these new innovative technologies came just before the 2023 National Retail Federation (NRF)’s Retail’s Big Show, an annual event held over three days in New York City bringing together around 37,000 retail professionals and vendors from more than 90 countries for educational and networking opportunities.
“Upheavals over the last few years have reshaped the retail landscape and the tools retailers need to be more efficient, more compelling to their customers, and less exposed to future shocks,” said Carrie Tharp, VP of retail and consumer, Google Cloud. “Despite uncertainty, the retail industry has enormous opportunity. The leaders of tomorrow will be those who address today’s most pressing in-store and online challenges with the newest technology tools, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.”
And just as Google continues to evolve, so must we all, myself included. Therefore, it is time for me to corral my shopping cart for the time being as I move into a new opportunity in a different industry.
A very heartfelt thanks to Jeff Metzger, Terri Maloney, Beth Pripstein, Maria Maggio and Kevin Gallagher for all of the insight, wisdom and support over the past 12 years and for putting up with me for so long.
It has been a truly wonderful and unique experience working in and observing the grocery world from this perspective and, no matter where life leads me, it will always remain a part of me.
So rather than telling you all goodbye, since I hope that I will continue to stay in touch with my Food World/Food Trade News family and all of the friends that I have made throughout my time here, instead I will just say:
Until next time…