Baby carrots go junk. I’m pretty curious how this $25M marketing campaign is going to play out. Can Baby Carrot, a $1B industry, compete with the $18B salty snack food industry by repackaging carrots to look like junk food? Per USA Today, the campaign includes: Packaged in Doritos-like bags. Three different designs are planned. Sold out of cool school vending machines. Tests are underway in Cincinnati and Syracuse, N.Y. Sporting slogans like this on billboards and packs: “The original orange doodles.” Touting seasonal tie-ins. Coming this Halloween: scarrots. (<— my personal fave) Offering a phone app powered by the sound of folks munching carrots in real time. Airing TV spots that tout baby carrots as extreme, futuristic and even, yes, sexy. I quite like the campaign. It made me finally research what I’ve been curious about for a while - baby carrots. What are they really?  Well what we typically see are baby-cut carrots. Which are carrots. Fully grown, adult carrots, that are shaved down to cute, bite-size, baby form. This practice started when a farmer did not want to waste and discard his unsightly, rotting carrots. At the time, about 70% of his carrot crop was too bent, broken, or twisted to sell to consumers. He, instead, cut them down, shaving off the ugly parts, and started a baby carrot revolution! Carrots are now bred specifically to be baby carrots - with more sugar and a brighter and more even orange color. They also are often bathed in chlorine, an antimicrobial treatment to reduce contamination on the skinless product. Ironic that something created to prevent waste seems pretty wasteful itself. 

Baby carrots go junk. I’m pretty curious how this $25M marketing campaign is going to play out. Can Baby Carrot, a $1B industry, compete with the $18B salty snack food industry by repackaging carrots to look like junk food? Per USA Today, the campaign includes:

  • Packaged in Doritos-like bags. Three different designs are planned.
  • Sold out of cool school vending machines. Tests are underway in Cincinnati and Syracuse, N.Y.
  • Sporting slogans like this on billboards and packs: “The original orange doodles.”
  • Touting seasonal tie-ins. Coming this Halloween: scarrots. (<— my personal fave)
  • Offering a phone app powered by the sound of folks munching carrots in real time.
  • Airing TV spots that tout baby carrots as extreme, futuristic and even, yes, sexy.

I quite like the campaign. It made me finally research what I’ve been curious about for a while - baby carrots. What are they really? 

Well what we typically see are baby-cut carrots. Which are carrots. Fully grown, adult carrots, that are shaved down to cute, bite-size, baby form. This practice started when a farmer did not want to waste and discard his unsightly, rotting carrots. At the time, about 70% of his carrot crop was too bent, broken, or twisted to sell to consumers. He, instead, cut them down, shaving off the ugly parts, and started a baby carrot revolution! Carrots are now bred specifically to be baby carrots - with more sugar and a brighter and more even orange color. They also are often bathed in chlorine, an antimicrobial treatment to reduce contamination on the skinless product. Ironic that something created to prevent waste seems pretty wasteful itself. 

Notes