Plant-based jerky, grain-free pizza and more on tap for the upcoming year.
Evol is adding keto-friendly frozen pizza to its portfolio, featuring grain-free crust made of chicken and Parmesan cheese. The uncured pepperoni variety features mozzarella cheese with spicy uncured pepperoni sprinkled over a tomato marinara sauce.
“Evol is another good business that came with Pinnacle that hadn’t received some attention in a while,” said Sean Connolly, president and chief executive officer of Conagra Brands. “This year, it will. It gets a full restage. In fact, this is my personal favorite. If you’re on a low-carb diet, you probably feel like you can’t eat pizza. Well, you can eat this pizza because the crust is not made of bread. It’s made of chicken and Parmesan cheese.”
Birds Eye is building out its lineup with new carb replacement offerings, such as lasagna with meat sauce featuring pasta made from vegetables. The dish includes lentil zucchini pasta layered between a tomato beef sauce with three cheeses.
“Birds Eye is going to get a huge launch next year, supporting this year’s launch,” Connolly said. “Remember, it lost its mojo about a year or so ago. The first place we’ll start is carb-replacement trend. It’s not slowing down. So this is an example of what we’re doing there. Our veggie lasagna, where the pasta sheets are made with zucchini and lentil pasta.”
Conagra’s Banquet Mega Meats meals will soon also feature boneless meats. The new offerings are inspired by quick-service restaurants, Conagra Brands said. A new Buffalo Style Boneless Strips meal provides 33 grams of protein and includes breaded white meat chicken patty strips coated in buffalo sauce with a side of macaroni and cheese.
The new Gardein Ultimate plant-based burger is free of dairy and soy and provides 19 grams of plant-based protein per serving. Non-GMO Project verified and vegan, the quarter-lb patties contain 240 calories each.
“Gardein is on fire these days,” Connolly said. “Everybody knows the plant-based movement has made the world go crazy. We’ve got a great lineup of products in frozen that continues to grow. That growth is accelerating. But one of the areas where we needed to address was burgers. We’ve designed this new Ultimate plant-based burger. It’s fantastic. It will be in the frozen section.”
Healthy Choice is making six of its popular Power Bowls recipes into handheld options with the launch of Healthy Choice wraps. One variety is the Adobo Chicken Wrap, featuring pulled chicken breast, pinto beans, vegetables, roasted pepitas and guajillo chili sauce rolled in a flour tortilla.
“Healthy Choice Power Bowls are a home run,” Connolly said. “We know we have our top six varieties that have extremely high velocities. We also know these consumers are always on the go. They can’t take a bowl with them many times. We can drive incremental consumption by giving them a portable handholdable product with the same six varieties they already love in a cassava wrap that’s inherently low in carbs. So a really new interesting line here from Healthy Choice that keeps the momentum on this franchise.”
New Hungry-Man brand Double Meat Bowls contain double portions of protein paired with hearty sides. Varieties include boneless fried chicken with macaroni and cheese, angus meatloaf with cheddar grits, and chicken bacon ranch with mashed potatoes.
“Hungry-Man is a terrific brand that came with Pinnacle that hadn’t received a lot of attention in quite some time,” Connolly said. “We’re completely restaging this business. This is Hungry-Man XL. This is our new double-meat bowl line. These things pack a wallop. Some of them have over 45 grams of protein per serving. We think it really lives up to the promise of satisfying a hungry person.”
New P.F. Chang’s Home Menu ramen is packaged in frozen single-serve bowls. The ramen comes in such varieties as pork shoyu, containing ramen noodles, pork, scallions and mushrooms in broth.
“Ramen works,” Connolly said. “Millennials love ramen. But most times when millennials eat, they’re alone. So multi-serve doesn’t really meet that need. So it’s a no-brainer that we take our ramen line that’s working and bringing it to single-serve.”
Conagra is featuring its Gardein plant-based meat alternatives in a range of new co-branded products. Including Birds Eye meatless Be’f lasagna, Birds Eye meatless garlic Chick’n and Healthy Choice meatless chipotle Chick’n Power Bowls.
“Another place we're leveraging Gardein is co-branding it with our icon brands,” Connolly said. “In the world of tech, you may remember the phrase Intel Inside. Well, in our world, we call it Gardein Inside. We’re basically taking the meat out, and we’re putting a plant-based meat in and we’re branding that plant-based meat Gardein because Gardein has tremendous credentials for that. But we’re doing it in concert with our icon brands because we’re convinced that will drive the highest velocities and the fastest trial.”
Marie Callender’s is expanding its bowls offerings with reinvented classics such as white wine and butter shrimp macaroni and cheese and lasagna with meat and sauce.
“Marie Callender’s … excellent restage this year,” Connolly said. “We need to keep the momentum next year. We’ll do that with new variety expansion. One of the interesting things we’re doing this year is this is our first foray into shrimp in the world of frozen. Why? Because shrimp don’t usually hold up particularly well in microwave. Our chefs have solved for that. They’ve created a great sauce product that basically envelops the shrimp and protects it. This happens to be a mac and cheese bowl with shrimp, white wine and butter. It’s fantastic.”
Gardein is getting in on the jerky game with a new line of Ultimate plant-based jerky. Hardwood smoked and made with non-GMO ingredients, the jerky provides 11 grams of plant-based protein per serving and comes in teriyaki, hot and spicy, and original varieties.
“Maybe the most disruptive thing that we're doing in jerky is this: Gardein Ultimate plant-based jerky,” Connolly said. “We marinate it the same way as our beef jerky. We smoke it the same way as our beef jerky. This will blow away any plant-based jerky you can find on the planet. If it doesn’t live up to that, just call me, and we’ll fix it. But I can tell you, this is that surprisingly good. You won’t believe you’re not eating meat. We think it’ll be disruptive to the category.”
Conagra is pushing its Duke’s brand into the jerky category with new Duke’s smoked beef strips. Smoked in small batches, the strips contain 11 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar per serving. Varieties include original recipe and Hatch green chile.
“We’re going after it with Duke’s, which was a great acquisition from a few years ago,” Connolly said. “This is a super-premium product, super clean label, and now we’re entering into jerky with these great products.”
Slim Jim is expanding its Savage lineup with new Savage Strips seasoned beef strips. Varieties include original and teriyaki.
“We’re going to extend the very successful Savage line this year, but not in the meat stick space, in the jerky space,” Connolly said. “Jerky is a big domain we really don’t compete in today. We’re getting after it in fiscal ‘21, starting with these terrific Savage strips.”
Spring has sprung—with new sandwiches.
Innovations across frozen food brands capitalize on popular consumer and restaurant trends.