Duncan Hines, a brand of Pinnacle Foods, Cherry Hill, NJ, strives to maintain the quality, consistency and superiority of each its product offerings. This mission, created by founder Duncan Hines, remains a building block for the com-pany’s current products and new introductions. Those goals continue to drive the company to differentiate its products from competitors.
The brand recently introduced a packaging revamp and a line of indulgent cake mixes and pourable glazes. The Decadent Cake line was created in response to consumer desire for higher-quality desserts and anytime baking occa-sions. Duncan Hines initially introduced Carrot Cake in the Decadent mix line in 2008. The success of the product prompted the two new varieties, Triple Chocolate cake and Apple Caramel cake, which launched in July.
The Decadent line features real ingredient add-ins. The Carrot Cake mix contains a pouch of dehydrated raisins and carrots that the consumer rehydrates at home. The Triple Chocolate cake includes chunks of real chocolate and a fudge sauce pouch that requires consumers only add water. Real pieces of chopped apple and a caramel sauce pouch are in-cluded in the Apple Caramel Decadent cake mix. The cake mixes retails for $2.89 to $3.19.
“These Decadent cake mixes are the standard bakery classics that you may not make on your own or wouldn’t have the ingredients on hand at home,” said Greg Greene, brand manager, Duncan Hines. “We’ve provided a superior cake with real ingredients, something that’s not normally found in the cake aisle.”
The new packaging made its debut on Duncan Hines brownie packages in June and can be seen on the entire Deca-dent line of mixes. Duncan Hines also removed hydrogenated oils and trans fats from the Decadent line. At this time, the company does not plan to retrofit other lines to be free of hydrogenated oils and trans fats.
“We’re always looking to step up the quality of our products and meet the requests of our consumers, but even when removing ingredients, taste remains king,” Mr. Greene said.
Taking the at-home bakery experience one step further, Duncan Hines introduced Amazing Glazes, which allow consumers to re-create the visual details of retail bakery products. The Chocolate and Vanilla glazes are packaged in an ergonomically shaped bottle with a flip-top spout. Consumers simply remove the top and seal, heat in the microwave and recap to glaze a cake. The glaze sets up with a ganache-like consistency. The creation of the glazes is in response to requests from consumer focus groups asking for something less sweet than traditional frosting and applicable for mul-tiple uses. One 10-oz bottle of glaze can cover an entire cake that would require approximately two cans of frosting. The 10-oz glazes retail for $2.39 and are sold next to ready-to-spread frostings.
A microsite within the Duncan Hines Web page, www.duncanhines.com, provides online videos to demonstrate how consumers can use the glazes to create bakery-style products in minutes.
“These products are designed for home bakers that find expression through baking,” Mr. Greene said. “With the su-perior Duncan Hines products and indulgent flavors we believe consumers will find many usage opportunities with these products.”