Within the sphere of customizable products one might say the two areas most ripe for personalization are the things you put in your body (food) and the things you put on your body (clothes). We’ve already begun to look at examples of the latter (as in this earlier post), so now let’s check out the food department (pardon the puns).
Of course, one could say that cooking is itself a process of customization — mixing together individual ingredients in infinitely diverse combinations to produce coherently tasteful ensembles. What’s perhaps fresh about the idea of customizable edibles is that it’s happening now at the level of prepared foods, rather than remaining at the miniature scale of individual preparation. Especially since this is not an industry known for finessing its wares — listen, when they say General Foods, they mean general foods!
Now, we understand the economic (and perhaps even moral) challenge of trying to shift the packaging of food from the scale of mass production to one of mass customization, but then, that’s what the shift towards the New Industrialism concept is all about. So here are just a few of the companies working now to satisfy the hearts, minds and tummies of their customers by personalizing their comestible wares.
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Chocri: Customized Chocolate Bars
Chocri is a German startup, founded in September 2008, and then launched in the US in January of this year. Chocri enables its customers to design their own chocolate bars by selecting from a menu of base chocolates (white, dark or milk) and toppings, of which there are over 100. These include global favorites, like nuts and dried fruit, but if you really want to surprise someone you can also choose real gold flakes, roasted almonds, pretzel, chive rolls, and even jalapenos! Talk about hot chocolate…Anyway, the bars are made in Germany and shipped globally.
Chocri says it wants you to eat chocolate and fully enjoy the good feeling it creates, so they claim to use only the best ingredients, such as organic, fair trade chocolate from Belgium. And, since goodness comes in different forms, they also state that they donate a percentage of their revenues to DIV Kinder, an organization that supports children in the West African country of Ivory Coast. According to a running tally on their website, these donations are approaching $50,000 to date.
Website:
http://www.createmychocolate.com/
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YouBars: Customized Trail Mix, Cookies and Other Nibbles
This online operation takes the cake (sorry) when it comes to the variety of customizable food products offered by a single site. Here’s the list of offerings: nutrition and energy bars; protein shakes; trail mix; cookies; and cereal. While the cookie category stands out at first glance as not exactly aligned with the nutritional goals of the other products, the company has done a pretty good job of offering healthy choices among its ingredient options. The website even provides a nutrition chart on every category page, which is not a universal feature among the other sites reviewed here. The About Us page, by the way, tells the classic story of a start-up launched by a mother/son team and the business’s subsequent evolution. We wish them the best of luck with their venture.
Website:
http://www.youbars.com/
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Red Moon: Customized Pet Food
We love our animals, certainly enough that we’re willing to spend time concocting their very own chow online. Yup, pup — you heard us right: throw away that bag of Purina, you’re getting a custom mix of your very own! And same with you, my friendly feline. Actually, the degree of product customization is relatively modest; you go on the Red Moon website, select one of the available base formulas, add a supplement or two from another list and choose your bag size. The order is then shipped direct to you and your mammalian companions. Re-order the very same mix from the saved formula when that last shipment’s been devoured by the hungry beasts.
Website:
http://www.redmoonpetfood.com/
eCreamery: Customized Ice Cream and Gelato
Forget the iPhone, forget the iPad, forget even iTunes — the topper is now…iScream! Yes, the old chant “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM” can finally be put to rest, or at least truncated after the very first line, since WE no longer all have to grab spoonfuls of the delicious foodstuff from the same container as it’s being passed across the sofa. Thanks to an online purveyor of customizable ice cream called eCreamery, we can now create our very own personalized flavors and have them shipped to us in tastefully designed containers bearing the flavor names of our choice. Don’t ask us how they manage to get the stuff to our doors without melting in a gooey mess, but they do.
The company’s configurator is easy to use and involves a four-step process of which the most impressive part is the long list of mix-ins — those added accent flavors that take ice cream out of the bland chocolate/vanilla/strawberry mode that existed before Baskin-Robbins’ 31 Flavors arrived on the scene in the Early Boomer Age. Thanks to mass customization we can now guffaw at the notion of having only thirty-one flavors to choose from — although we’re not sure the world is quite ready for avocado-flavored ice cream!
Website:
http://www.ecreamery.com/
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Heineken Beer: Personalized Bottling
Okay, so this is the kind of food product that you DON’T want people trying to customize, at least, not in terms of formulating the food itself. So what do you do if you still want to provide your customers with the co-creative experience? You let them design some of the packaging, of course! That’s what the people at Heineken did, and we must say, it would be pretty cool to serve your guests a bottle of beer with a picture of your frat brother’s derrière on the reverse side – you know, a heiny on your Heine!
Website:
http://www.heineken.com/ie/YourHeineken.aspx
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General disclaimer: listen, we’re art and design types, not food critics, so we can’t vouch for the taste or preparation quality of anything discussed here. That’s why we’re inviting our readers to send in their own reviews and recipes for customizable eats from these or any other sites, so we can compare notes and all head to the nearest food configurator!
