Pillsbury Canada is putting its powerful marketing clout behind Old El Paso brand to capture more of Canada’s growing Mexican food category.

Pillsbury took over sales and marketing responsibility for Old El Paso from Primo Foods, formerly a division of Pillsbury, in the fall of last year when the Primo trademark and the rest of its products were sold to Nabisco.

Sheila Murray, senior marketing manager for Old El Paso, says while the brand was already the market leader under Primo, there was room for improvement.

‘When you look at it from a trade perspective, which is really where the transition is going to occur, rather than from the consumers’ perspective, the sales force at Pillsbury was able to leverage existing relationships,’ says Murray.

‘Pillsbury also brought to the table significantly stronger category management expertise which has helped in terms of educating the trade in the importance of Old El Paso in the Mexican food aisle, and in working with the trade in defining private label and branded roles within the category,’ he says.

The Mexican food market is still underdeveloped in Canada, compared to the United States, with household penetration at about 68% in Canada versus 77% in the u.s.

Old El Paso is the market leader with about one-third share, excluding tortilla chips, but it is vying with a lot of other players for shelf space.

Not only does it have to battle three or four other key national brands, but there are a lot of regional players and private label products which have a big share of the category.

Murray is confident there is still room for Old El Paso to grow.

‘The category is $142 million in Canada, $90 million excluding chips.’

She says, ‘With the u.s. at about $1.6 billion, if you use the one-tenth rule, there’s still lots of room for improvement in Canada, not only from a usage standpoint but even from in-home penetration.’

There are over 50 skus in the Old El Paso lineup of shells, meal kits, salsa, bean, garnishes, seasonings, rice and chilies.

Two new line extensions, White Corn Taco Shells and Refried Black Beans, have recently been added to the roster.

The new products were developed to leverage two consumer trends: the growing popularity of Mexican food in general in Canada and the importance of healthy products to consumers.

Canadians are also developing more sophistication in the Mexican category and, says Murray, are looking for new ideas and new and convenient ways of bringing dishes they may have had in restaurants into their homes.

Murray says these are the areas where Old El Paso is targeting its advertising efforts and that there will an increased emphasis on the consumer both with advertising and in-store communications.

Print advertising from Leo Burnett of Toronto is built around Mexican in Minutes, a collection of recipes which focus on the entire Old El Paso product line.

This campaign of double-page spread ads is running through the summer in magazines such as Homemaker’s and Canadian Living.

The theme is also seen on television with Nacho Man, a campaign adapted from u.s. creative which shows how easy it is to make nachos.

In addition to the advertising, Murray says in-store promotions are a critical component to driving growth within the Mexican food category.

‘We just finished sampling our nacho recipe from the commercial so there was an integrated focus between in-home advertising and in-store recipe usage.’

She says, ‘Mexican food is still very much at this point an impulse item in Canada. The more presence we can build from an in-store perspective, the more we drive consumer purchases.’