Less than a year and a half after axing its natural seafood range Naked & Natural, Birds Eye is entering the fray once more, with Catch Fresh, a range of frozen prawns it believes could become a £15m brand within three years.
The King Prawns, Emperor Prawns (king prawns cooked in their shell and then peeled) and Crispy King Prawn lines boast the strapline 'peeled to frozen in 2.5 hours' similar to the one used on packs of peas.
Birds Eye is targeting first year sales of £10m and £15m a year within three years and that the Emperor King Prawns were the first to be sold in the UK.
The range (rsp £3.99 for a 175g bag of Emperor Prawns, £3.99 for a 190g bag of King Prawns and £3.99 for a 250g bag of Crispy King Prawns) went into Tesco last month and will roll into other multiples over the next three weeks.
Consumer research showed one of the most important factors in buying seafood was freshness, said Matt Richards, senior brand manager for fish. The '2.5 hours' message was "a tangible, rational message you can communicate to consumers, but it's an emotional one too".
The range, which comes in quattro-seal packaging that can stand without support, would complement its Bake To Perfection range, he added. The launch will be backed by a television campaign which will kick off at the beginning of April as well as online, instore and direct mail activity.
The new range is Birds Eye's first major seafood launch since it pulled Naked & Natural in October 2009. "Naked & Natural was a good learning for us it was a great product, but we probably didn't execute it quite as well as we did Bake To Perfection and as we're going to do with Catch Fresh," said Richards.
The launch follows Birds Eye consumer research last July and September into natural seafood.
Birds Eye peas all of which carry the 2.5 hours guarantee have notched up £66.6m worth of sales over the past year [Nielsen 52w/e 22 January 2011].
The King Prawns, Emperor Prawns (king prawns cooked in their shell and then peeled) and Crispy King Prawn lines boast the strapline 'peeled to frozen in 2.5 hours' similar to the one used on packs of peas.
Birds Eye is targeting first year sales of £10m and £15m a year within three years and that the Emperor King Prawns were the first to be sold in the UK.
The range (rsp £3.99 for a 175g bag of Emperor Prawns, £3.99 for a 190g bag of King Prawns and £3.99 for a 250g bag of Crispy King Prawns) went into Tesco last month and will roll into other multiples over the next three weeks.
Consumer research showed one of the most important factors in buying seafood was freshness, said Matt Richards, senior brand manager for fish. The '2.5 hours' message was "a tangible, rational message you can communicate to consumers, but it's an emotional one too".
The range, which comes in quattro-seal packaging that can stand without support, would complement its Bake To Perfection range, he added. The launch will be backed by a television campaign which will kick off at the beginning of April as well as online, instore and direct mail activity.
The new range is Birds Eye's first major seafood launch since it pulled Naked & Natural in October 2009. "Naked & Natural was a good learning for us it was a great product, but we probably didn't execute it quite as well as we did Bake To Perfection and as we're going to do with Catch Fresh," said Richards.
The launch follows Birds Eye consumer research last July and September into natural seafood.
Birds Eye peas all of which carry the 2.5 hours guarantee have notched up £66.6m worth of sales over the past year [Nielsen 52w/e 22 January 2011].
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