Tomato Aisle Takeover: Why Your Next Can of Sauce May Be a Carton

Tomato sauce is now poised for a similar shift—a profound category shakeup called a “Blue Ocean” by INSEAD Professor Renée Mauborgne in her book “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.”

Blue Oceans happen when a company manages to shift the shopper paradigm, grow a category and capture much of that growth for itself. The counterpoint is a “Red Ocean,” where multiple companies, like sharks, fight a bloody battle in a highly competitive space.