Nestle Launches E-Tail Bakery Website

Nestle USA, Inc. has launched a consumer-targeted bakery website, www.VeryBestBaking.com, to bring separate branded products together into a single, retail e-commerce portal. Fry Multimedia, Inc., with e-tailing experience with clients such as 1-800-Flowers.com, Crate & Barrel, Eddie Bauer and Coach, designed, developed and is hosting the site, which went live Monday, April 3.

The companies said in an announcement today that the target market is "America's 15 million active baking households."

Recipes—hundreds of them—are the draw to guide these consumers toward the purchase of Nestle brands promoted on the site. These currently include Carnation Milk, Nestle Toll House, Libby's Pumpkin and Albers Corn Meal.

"By integrating their premier baking brands in to a single baking portal, Nestle USA has created a dynamic online baking resource for all levels of bakers. We also included a lot of fun family oriented kitchen activities," Diana Madrigal, associate creative director at Fry, said today.

A registration feature allows users to store favorite recipes, email recipes to friends and family and receive a monthly e-newsletter, "Very Best Baking Times," which is co- produced by Fry and Nestle.

Ken Crites, e-Business Marketing Manager for Nestle's Prepared Foods and Baking businesses, said, "We believe we can attract a large user base among America's 15 million active baking households. In fact, over the coming months we expect to double our traffic and substantially increase the average visit time per user."

Nestle will promote the site on the packaging of each of the brands in Nestle's Baking division: Nestle Carnation Milk, Nestle Toll House, Libby's Pumpkin and Pumpkin Pie Mix and Albers Corn Meal. There will also be a link to the site from the parent www.NestleUSA.com site.

Fry Multimedia is based in Ann Arbor, MI.

Headquartered in Glendale, CA, Nestle USA has 19,500 employees, $8 billion in sales and is part of Swiss-based Nestle S.A., which is by some reports the world's largest food company.

Edited by Bob Sperber