Baked cheese is reinvented by A Friendly Bread for upscale convenience.
An adult version of the concept using sourdough bread was offered by startup A Friendly Bread prior to Kraft Heinz launching their Lunchables Grilled Cheesies frozen sandwich. The founder of A Friendly Bread, Lane Levine, aimed to provide customers with a handy frozen product that would be regarded as a high-end commodity.
“I started (this) as a fresh bread business in 2018 and started doing bread delivery and selling at farmers markets,” Mr. Levine stated. “Customers would approach me at farmers markets and show me pictures of how they were transforming my sourdough product into gourmet foods.”
Mr. Levine was motivated by the concepts to start experimenting with his bread and create his grilled cheese sandwiches. He first discovered tastes and how well the sourdough bread worked as a grilled cheese sandwich at grilled cheese night meals at a nearby apartment building.
In order to make things easier, we brought readymade grilled cheese sandwiches to the occasion, Mr. Levine explained. “I also had them in the refrigerator at home, and friends would start heating them up. That’s when it dawned on me to create a packaged product that could be scaled up because you could freeze or refrigerate it and get a lot more use out of a single loaf of bread.”
Mr. Levine’s target market has expanded since the frozen grilled cheese sandwiches were introduced in March 2022, from millennials working from home to grandparents consuming the sandwiches with their grandkids.
“The millennial generation was our initial target market because they can work from home for 10 minutes by simply tossing their sandwich in the toaster oven, then relaxing and finishing their work,” the speaker stated. However, we also discovered that older women—that is, ladies who are cooking for one and don’t want to make a big deal out of it—are an even more committed group. They also want to create something wholesome yet elegant. Among the groups of grandmothers, it’s also the older women who buy them and give them to their grandchildren.
According to Mr. Levine, the company’s sweet spot has been specialty retail, and the product has made inroads into Ahold-Delhaize-owned Fresh Market, Giant Food, and The Giant Co.
“Our main focus is on increasing awareness on a local level in the mid-Atlantic and the Eastern Seaboard in general,” he stated. “We’re willing to try it in our region if we do launch with more traditional stores, as long as we can do demos and build awareness.”
Mr. Levine noted that while the company is primarily focused on retail right now, he is also experimenting with direct-to-consumer.
We really don’t focus on the internet since it’s so difficult to transport, he added. “Orders for a full case of grilled cheese sandwiches started to come in, but logistically that’s just not what we do.”
Convenience shops, fast food restaurants, and college campuses have all shown desire to the brand.
Mr. Levine stated, “College campuses are ideal because, similar to Starbucks, you can order grilled cheese and have it warmed up for you in their TurboChef.” Thus, “they can do the same thing with ours at these college campus coffee shops—throw it in a TurboChef, and it’s done in ninety seconds.”
According to Mr. Levine, more investigation is being conducted to see whether the food may be kept in refrigerated areas of retail establishments.
“Right now, we’re testing shelf life with a lab because, in a quick-service setting, it’s much more convenient to just grab it out of the refrigerator and pop it in the oven—it only takes 45 seconds instead of 90,” he explained.
The business is presently
“We are still here because it has allowed us to grow into different business models. We started five and a half years ago in this shared commissary called B-More Kitchen,” Mr. Levine stated. “We utilize actual sourdough, and we handle the entire process from feeding our starting to mixing, shaping, and baking the bread. To ensure a clean slice for the sandwich, we bake the bread and then chill it for at least a day.
“We use an industrial slicer to slice bread and cheese, and then we hand-assemble the sandwiches, cutting them in half, and baking them for five minutes to initiate the melting process. After that, we remove them from the oven, freeze them, and finally bag and seal them.”
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According to Mr. Levine, his product is in an emerging yet promising market.
“I think it will gain momentum once people start to notice the category, even though it’s only been around for a year and people don’t usually go into the grocery store looking for grilled cheese (sandwiches) in the frozen section,” he said. Instead of striving to expand, we’re going to gradually increase the number of doors.
Mr. Levine believes that smaller grilled cheese companies like his may profit from a larger company setting the standard, given the introduction of Kraft Heinz’s Lunchables Grilled Cheesies earlier this year.
“It’s a bigger company endorsing a new category and hopefully using their marketing funds to inform consumers about that kind of product,” he explained. “We might have a customer who is aware of frozen grilled cheese. When they visit that section, they notice that the Lunchables are possibly intended for children, but they also want something a little more upscale for adults. They may choose ours because they feel confident doing so because they already know that kind of food exists.”