Haute@Home Delivers Delectables

At a dinner party, a chef must blend flavors and textures masterfully to create something that a group of diverse people will enjoy. Likewise, the Haute@Home catalog mixes different selling propositions to form a cohesive shopping experience for everyone from novice entertainers who can only boil water, to seasoned cooking and restaurant professionals.

Florencia Palmaz, creator and president of Haute@Home, exemplifies the busy entertainer who wants casual elegance delivered quickly to the table. Her mother and business partner, Amalia Palmaz, comes from a more formal entertaining tradition in which the hostess prepares everything from scratch. Both women, who hail from Argentina, are experts on things culinary, but came to the gourmet prepared-foods market “backwards,” Florencia says.

Amalia owns the country’s largest venison ranch, in San Antonio, TX, and is CEO of GoodHeart Brand Specialty Meats, a full-process wholesale purveyor of venison and other game, including bison, wild boar, ostrich, quail, and Argentine and Kobe beef. The name GoodHeart reflects that game meats generally are low in fat.

After individual retail requests started to trickle into GoodHeart a few years ago, the mother-and-daughter team began offering specialty meats direct to consumers through a catalog. Florencia recalls, “As a fluke, I was carrying some hors d’oeuvres for a hotel here in town. I decided to also offer those in the catalog, and they became the most successful items in the whole book.”

The women began selling ready-to-serve haute cuisine, and the catalog was renamed Haute@Home to better incorporate the two components of the business. The two built a hotel-style kitchen in which to produce the cuisine in catering quantities. “We cook every day … flash freeze to preserve it and ship it out,” Florencia says, adding that they try to keep quantities below 100 of each item, and turn inventory frequently to prevent freezer burn.

Florencia says the catalog strives to focus on glamorous but easy hosting, as summed up in the tagline, “Your Incognito Chef for Entertaining.” The customer list is equal parts men and women. Florencia says male buyers include a lot of grill-lovers, while the women fall into two camps: “enlightened housewives” who say, “Why should I continue cooking?” and younger women who are not as affluent but want to entertain. “Those are the hors d’oeuvre buyers for cocktail parties,” Florencia ventures.

She says the company targets self-purchasers over gift-buyers, unlike many food catalogs that put their greatest effort into the holiday season. “Holiday business is nice, but what do you do for the rest of the year? Do people not eat?,” she asks.

Since the restaurant industry provides much of the Palmazes’ business, they wanted the catalog to pass muster with culinary professionals, as well as convenience-seeking party throwers. It was a matter of pride and a way to differentiate themselves from the competition, says Florencia.

Since the catalog is really divided into two sections, one for prepared meals, the other for uncooked meats, the creative challenge was to meld them. The women, experts in the fine meat processing business and inveterate “foodies,” decided they needed some marketing help as their business grew. In April 2000, Haute@Home hired AGA Catalog Marketing and Design of New York City.

Paced Like a Meal

The book is paginated into sections that follow the basic progression of a meal. The pace guides, but does not prescribe how to choose and combine foods. The book flows from a front section of hors d’oeuvres and other prepared foods, to sauces and accouterments, to raw meats and seafood (roughly forming a “main-course” section), a gift section, and finally dessert.

Rhonda Cohen, AGA’s chief creative officer, notes several elements that “hold a new customer’s hand” throughout the catalog. First, each section begins with a black-and-white photo representing an icon for that section. “Whether you’re in the hors d’oeuvre or entree section, right away you can tell what section you’re in just by looking at the photo, title and accompanying editorial,” Cohen says.

The editorial tips and anecdotes are written in the voice of the owners, adding credibility. Cohen says, “There are real people behind the brand, and customers actually will write in and direct their correspondence to either Flo or Amalia.”

Florencia notes, “Customers are better educated in their culinary knowledge than I expected. They’re sensitive to what is considered proper and the right way to serve an item.”

Cohen emphasizes that the copy accompanying product listings is factual, and focuses on the quality, ingredients and ease of preparation. Sidebars add tips, suggestions and how-tos, and help the consumer in a user-friendly, personal way, Cohen continues. For instance, a call-out in the bread section explains that the loaves come frozen inside so they’ll be fresher when it’s time to bake them.

The catalog’s Cuisine du Cinema spread reflects Florencia’s more casual mode of entertaining. She has selected meals to accompany four of her favorite culinary-themed films: “Babette’s Feast,” “Like Water for Chocolate,” “Big Night” and “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.” A copy of the appropriate video is included in the price of the food.

A Subjective Balance

Florencia says she does a rough square-inch analysis when planning the catalog. “With the cooked meat selections, it took us almost a year to develop. I study flavor ‘hot lists’ in the country. There are trends, like martinis or chipotles,” she says. “We stay sensitive to that, but … since we’re in the catalog business, while it has to taste good, it also has to be beautiful, and that’s tricky in food.”

She says the company generally designs its recipes to have “nice color variegation, as well as flavor balance, and then that goes with the hero shots.” So it’s a battle between how popular the food is because of taste, and how glamorous it looks on the page. Often, the flavor makes a hero out of a product that doesn’t necessarily appear beautiful. “It’s a subjective balance,” she notes.

Cohen says AGA collaborated closely with the Palmazes on pacing the book. For instance, in the pasta section, the reader comes suddenly upon a full-bleed shot of one dish. Cohen notes this adds impact, drama and surprise. While it seems extravagant from a product-density standpoint, “We’re still selling six products from that one shot—three kinds of pasta and three kinds of sauces.”

Integrating pick-up photography with new photography was a creative challenge, Cohen says, “We took the liberty of cropping photos a little differently than before to enhance the food as much as possible and blend in with the new photography.”

Separate but Consistent

The Market section, which showcases GoodHeart’s meat, poultry, game and seafood, has it own identity, Cohen says. But that doesn’t alienate the Haute@Home consumer who wants to buy uncooked meats, as well. By keeping the section separate, readers don’t confuse the prepared gourmet meals with the uncooked meals.

What ties the book together is the brand color of a dusty, sophisticated blue, Cohen recounts. Because of a higher black content, the blue tints well and is neutral, she notes. “It complements the clean presentation and is universally appealing.”

The brand color appears in panels throughout the catalog’s body, from the large panels in the frontmost entertaining sections, to a very narrow informational top band in the raw-materials section carrying the name of the sub-section, such as farm-raised venison, as well as repeating “The Market” in the top left corner of every spread.

The Market section “had to sit within the whole book for a harmonious look, yet we wanted it to also have its own personality. The trick is, how do you balance that?” Cohen points to the generous use of silhouette photography in The Market as one note of difference.

In a relatively copy-heavy catalog, the Avenir family typeface appears with consistency throughout. It has high readability, and looks great in a lot of weights, as well as in large and small type size, comments Cohen. “Yet it’s not your typical Helvetica, or the overused Gill Sans, and it doesn’t have as small an x-height as Futura. So its balance is nice. We wanted a clean typeface that would complement The Market, but we wanted it to be consistent in the whole piece.”

Truth in Advertising

Since both Florencia and Amalia wanted the photography executed in a way that would respect the culinary expertise of the professional chef or butcher, all of the food (with the exception of the meats) is shown on white tableware.

This conforms to culinary guidelines, and doesn’t distract from the presentation of the food, says Cohen. “To consumers, that might not be as important, but to professionals, that’s something that matters,” Cohen adds. “We wanted artful food styling that’s spontaneous and aspirational to add personality to the photography.”

Indeed, over-propping or overuse of lifestyle shots can be a dangerous route for catalogers. Consultant Tony Cox of Dallas-based Catalog Solutions, says, “A lot of people get so into the artistic presentation that it’s unclear what’s for sale.”

But he finds that Haute@Home stays clean in its presentation, and clear as to what it’s selling. Florencia confirms, “We wanted to stay focused on food, and didn’t want to ever be confused with a tableware catalog.”

Florencia attends all photo shoots. “For me, one of the biggest issues is staying authentic to culinary relevance. For example, I’m picky about what garnishes are used … it had better be something you either eat with that food or is part of it. I don’t like using crazy vegetables or silly fruits that are tiny and cute just for color or a splash. I try to stay true to food.”

Further, she doesn’t encourage use of artificial props and tricks to enhance a product’s look. “I don’t like supergluing food together or using lard instead of ice cream.”

At the photo shoots, AGA relies on Florencia to share her knowledge about food, such as a sauce to be added, or the right shaped dish to have the merchandise laid out on, Cohen says.

Food to be photographed is sent via overnight express to New York. “Just as if it were an order,” Florencia says.

The agency uses conventional film photography and shoots in natural daylight, which gives a fresh, open, inviting feeling that artificial lighting often can’t replicate.

Where’s the Beef?

Florencia points to her background in meat processing, and says she thinks real chefs have more respect for products that reflect an expertise in meat-cutting. “Cooking always hides that. … If the product is sold raw, they should see it raw and know they get it raw,” Florencia says.

The catalog paper used is Opus dull coated bright white. “It’s a cooler white, so especially in the Market section where you have the red of the meats, you want a nice cool white against which to display that type of photography.”

By contrast, most of the gift meats on the final spread are shown cooked—a better way to present them, explains Cohen.

Florencia says showing the meats small is a psychological maneuver: “So you don’t feel visually full, or as if you’re going to get fat by the time you finish the catalog: ‘Will I eat too much if I buy this?’

“I always felt it’s not wise to overwhelm the customer with visual calories,” she continues. “We keep things small, dainty and enticing, like when you go to a French restaurant and they serve five small courses. After each one you wish you could have one more bite.”