NaturKidz do it different in CPG

The consumer goods business is full of rules, best practice and received wisdom about how you do things.

Bonnie Slade believes that sometimes you need to Zig when others Zag.

Inspired by the needs of her own growing children for healthy kids’ and toddler snacks, and not “lollies and sweets disguised as healthy products,” Bonnie created NaturKidz in Nelson, New Zealand selling a range of freeze dried fruit snacks packaged like crisps but because of their manufacturing process, 100% natural and with no additives.

Bonnie’s life experiences also meant she had spent many years outside her native New Zealand and much of that in Southeast Asia. There she developed some great connections and market understanding and so that became her first launch market.  

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“Most businesses consider the market they are based in their home or launch market.  But if you are from New Zealand that means that even if you are successful, you have to ‘go again’ to get scale in a bigger market.  So we did it the other way around and launched in Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia and established the brand and the business that way”. 

Fruit Crispz, the freeze dried fruit snack product in question has become a success in Asia.

Subsequently, Bonnie and her team had the unusual challenge of extending an early established brand into its home markets of New Zealand and Australia.

“And of course we all think we know our home market well so we sometimes take things for granted and make assumptions.  We decided therefore to use Stickybeak to test whether all Aussies and Kiwis thought like we did or not, and whether our Asia approach would hold true here too”.

“Stickybeak meant we could very quickly test product appeal, purchase intent, pricing and where it should appear in the supermarket.  

“We were stoked.  It was so fast and simple.”  

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Retailers assumed mums would only buy multipacks. But Stickybeak’s consumer testing told a different story.

 “Definitive Stickybeak testing showed that mums would buy single packs” which we knew anyway, but needed the data to challenge our buyer.

“The other great thing about the Stickybeak feedback is that it is from real consumers not some weird AI and you get these amazing verbatims as well as statistics.”

Those powerful open-text responses led the team to a key packaging change. While stats said to lead with product benefits, the emotional pull of “made by a mum for mums” proved too strong to ignore.

“For example, the statistical data showed that our front of pack claims should probably have been the amazing product benefits, but when we read the incredibly emotional and powerful written reactions to the ‘made by a mum for mums’ approach, we decided to lead with that.

“It’s much more emotional and much more distinctive and of course, the pack does show the product benefits too - no added sugar, preservatives, or colours. 

Armed with great personal experience and fast customer insights, Bonnie and the NaturKidz  team have become successful by ignoring market entry norms, resisting pressure from retailers and even following verbatim responses to research over statistics. Proof you can sometimes Zig to victory.  

For FMCG marketers, it’s a reminder: fast, cost-effective consumer insights can help you skip the guesswork, win retailer arguments, and lead with confidence.

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