The View from the Pass
Reviving an dusty mailing list with fresh, unfiltered takes from the industry.
Editorial Direction | Newsletter Strategy | Brand Voice
Chef Fred Eliot should be taking it easy.
After all, it's January in Portland, Maine, when local chefs usually lay low between lucrative and punishing summer tourist seasons.
The trend for clean label baking products is nearly a decade old in the United States. As more consumers demand pronounceable ingredient lists, bigger players are getting on board. Which is how this humble duo of French pastry mecs playing an unlikely role in the in chicken sandwich wars of 2019, one of the bigger viral food moments of recent history.
Hot line cooks, we know it’s tempting. The pastry department just has so many nice things. Balloon whisks and exoglass cutters and all those fun rings and molds. They won’t notice if you just borrow one little offset really quick, right?
"Something I tell my team is they should be prepared to hear no a lot, because I tell myself no a lot. We have to be prepared to fail. The moment after you fail is a very defining moment."
A Brand Voice Problem
Matfer Bourgeat USA has deep credibility within its industry niche of professional chefs, but was struggling to translate all that word of mouth equity into its own words. The objective: Dust off a dormant mailing list and fill it with the real, vibrant, detailed conversations that Matfer’s chef clientele specialize in.
The Approach:
A recipes roundup or some softcore celebrity chef slop was never going to be an option for Matfer’s audience of hardcore professionals. Instead, we went straight into everyday working kitchens and crafted an editorial strategy that took stock of “The View from the Pass.”
Every issue was built around a single idea or conversation, written with the same care as a longform magazine profile. Topics included the role of vegan butter in viennoiserie production, the clean label movement's implications for wholesale bakeries, and what it actually means to fail gracefully as a chef. Matfer's product knowledge informed the editorial perspective without ever appearing as a sell.
The Result:
The monthly letter proved subject expertise, spoke the precise and technical language of Matfer’s primary clientele, and served to reanimate a dormant email list. In its first twelve issues, open rates increased from 13% to 30%. Currently, the newsletter hits 8,00 inboxes with an average 36% read rate, roughly double the industry standard for B2B food and beverage.
Click through the quotes to read some selections.