But companies like start-up Gateaux are rising to meet consumer demand for frozen baked goods that are convenient and yet still taste homemade with high quality ingredients that are easy to recognize.
“The whole purpose of Gateaux is to elevate the frozen dessert aisle. When I went searching for a product and what to make, I realized that there was a lot of preservatives, palm oil and cheap ingredients in the frozen dessert aisle. And, what I wanted to do is introduce people to a really high-quality, homemade tasting product,” founder Lindsay Gott told FoodNavigator-USA at the Winter Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas last week.
Drawing from her training at Le Cordon Bleu and her experience as a chef, Gott started with what she says she knows best: butter-based cakes made with locally sourced ingredients.
“Whatever you put into the product comes out, ultimately. So, if you are putting poor ingredients into it, you are going to end up tasting that. And that is why we just start with the best. So, everything we use is local dairy, local cage-free eggs, Valrhona cocoa powder from France, which I think I excellent, and Nielsen-Massey vanilla,” she explained.
From these ingredients she created ready-to-bake cakes that consumers can pop out of the freezer and put directly into the oven without thawing or worrying about a pan – a concept that trendspotters at the Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas last week coined as “elevated convenience.”
Because Gott believes people should enjoy excellent food everyday and that they don’t need a special occasion to enjoy fresh cake, she launched at the Winter Fancy Food Show a line of petite cakes that serve two to five people depending on the SKU and how indulgent a consumer feels. The line complements her existing full-size cakes, which she says are better suited for larger gatherings.
Smaller cakes for smaller budgets without compromising taste, quality
The smaller cakes not only meet rising consumer demand for clean lables and small indulgences, but also recognizes the realities of the current economic environment. While Gott says her cakes are for consumers who do not want to compromise on quality, the smaller cakes come at a lower price point of $12.99 to $13.99 so they are easier to "give ... a whirl."
“And,” she adds, “when they taste it, they keep coming back.”
