Influencer Innovation: Frozen Meal Brand Counter Tests Creator Driven Model

In an era when cookbooks and traditional recipes are being slowly replaced by Tik Tok videos and Instagram posts by influential food bloggers, one frozen food brand is finding new product ideas by going straight to the source.

Launched in 2021 by Benn Manning and Jeff Ferrell, two former Walmart and Sam’s Club corporate employees in sourcing and merchandising, Counter aims to fill a gap in the frozen entree category for consumers seeking macronutrient-friendly meal options. In the course of raising a pre-seed round, the two founders were introduced to a number of content creators, weight-loss coaches, nutritionists and influencers in the macro-tracking community and realized there was a way to harness their enthusiasm and followers to uplift the nascent brand.

Tapping influencers to introduce a brand to consumers and help build awareness is a well-tested strategy but Counter (a nod to the macro-counting dietary trend it aligns with) is going one step further by putting content creators and food bloggers at the center of its product development, marketing and education strategy.

“Let’s make them owners in the company and actually have them put skin in the game,” Manning said of the company’s approach. “The relationship is just much more organic. It’s not a ‘hashtag’ ad. It’s just an outgrowth of the work and messaging that they already have.”

In total, 24 content creators invested in the brand along with Built Brands founder and CEO Nick Greer and Tara Housley, former EVP of Beauty Industry Group. That group includes people like Stealth Health cookbook author Tom Walsh, who went “deep” with the brand and was granted shares in the employee stock pool – separate from being shareholder investor – partly because his Taco Mac & Cheese recipe was used as Counter’s first retail product.

However, Manning specified that Counter is not offering a percentage of revenue to influencers who provide recipes for new products.

For the majority of the other influencers connected to the brand, the investments are just one part of the relationship. Other perks include placement in the brand’s free online cookbook and sharing of social posts to help both parties “build credibility” and “expand the message” of the macro diet trend, Manning said.

“You can say: this video had 15 million views, I think there’s some social proof in that,” Manning said. “It’s a different way to approach that product development process.”

Counter has raised about $2.2 million over two fundraising rounds over the course of two years, closing its $1 million seed round in the first quarter of 2023. It intends to open a Series A in the next 12 to 18 months that expects to be in the $5 to $10 million range. Presently, the brand is not seeking new influencer-investors but that may change when Counter begins its next raise, Manning added.

In June, Counter launched its first retail product, the frozen Taco Mac & Cheese created by Walsh, that is in over 400 Sam’s Club stores in 3-packs for about $14 each. The strategy is to target club and mass retail channels first utilizing Manning and Ferrell’s contacts with buyers at Walmart and Sam’s Club.

Frozen food sales surged in 2022 to $72.2 billion, up from $66.5 in 2021 and $54 billion in pre-pandemic 2019, according to data from the American Frozen Food Institute. That momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down as food prices have gone up.

The opportunity for Counter lies in tapping the consumer market that arose during the pandemic for meal delivery subscriptions, Manning said. As customers have returned to in-store shopping again and high inflation has put pressure on people’s wallets there is demand for a less expensive ready-made meal

“[Meal delivery subscriptions] are $12 to $15 a meal because they have to ship them on dry ice. And a lot of people are kind of shying away from that right now,” he said. By offering a frozen entree that meets certain consumers’ nutritional dietary needs, Counter sees “a lot of meat on the bone” for growth.

The brand will launch its Taco Mac & Cheese meal in Texas and Colorado Target stores in early October along with two new frozen entrees: beefy queso burrito and jalapeño popper mac and cheese. The company is also working with Sam’s Club and Walmart to bring more products to shelves in 2024, according to Manning. Each Taco Mac & Cheese has 31 grams of protein, 32 grams of carbs and 10 grams of fat.

The goal is to create a new category of high-protein, low-calorie frozen meals for Walmart and build its distribution from there. Counter is leveraging its content creator investors for both recipe development as well as using the social platforms as a virtual research and development team through influencer followers.

The approach so far has been focused on slowly building momentum by driving interest through its investor-influencer network and driving velocity off shelves of its initial product while looking to “ramp up pretty quick” in the next year or two, Manning said.

“It’s like don’t get too far over your skis,” he said. “Let’s nail the basics. Let’s nail the timing, nail the commercialization, nail the quality and then the selling will happen as you have that shelf productivity.”

Manning concedes that macro-counting as a dietary trend is not new but very few brands have put it on the front of labels. Real Good Foods prominently places its protein, carbohydrate and sugar nutritional data on the front-of-pack but Counter has leaned into macro-friendly eating as its main value proposition.

“Just the power of protein and prioritizing protein in the diet,” Manning said. “This isn’t some new crazy thing. We’re tapping into that and we feel like this is the end game of nutrition.”