There is no denying the fact that as a nation, we Britons have a sweet tooth. In fact, our love for chocolate makes us one of the top five nations in the world to consume the most chocolates per year.
Mintel notes that 92 percent of the UK population eat chocolate, among which a whoping 59 percent eat chocolate everyday.
No wonder, the market size of the chocolate and confectionery production industry has been estimated to be £3.7 billion and is expected to increase by 6.1 percent in 2022.
With more consumers opting to shop locally in recent years, the confectionery category is growing by 2.7 percent in independent and symbol stores. Apart from self-consumption, the fact that chocolates are a go-to option for gifting, seasonal occasions often further push their sales.
Kenton Burchell, Group Trading Director at Bestway reveals that confectionery gifting is growing at +18 percent and is driven by a growth in sales from events like Xmas, Mother’s Day and Valentines.
Young shoppers have also played a significant role in independent retail success in the past year by buying and visiting more than other demographics, Burchell said.
Nick Reade, Sales Director, Mars Wrigley, echoes similar sentiment as he believes that confectionery is a hugely important category for the convenience channel and retailers should aim to make themselves aware of consumer trends and behaviours that tie into occasions such as the big night in and how consumers are choosing to consume confectionery on-the-go.
Well, our love of chocolate isn’t dying down anytime soon.
With Easter and Mother’s Day in the near sight, retailers should well- stock their stores with sugar confectioneries and chocolate treats, keeping in mind the consumer favourites as well as new launches.
What’s in vogue
Fruity flavours continue to rule the country. Research has shown that confectionery shoppers expect variety in flavours and textures.
Through its dynamic innovation programme, Mars Wrigley launched Extra Refreshers gum early last year to further grow into the fruity gum category.
“Following the addition of Extra Refreshers singles, we continued to innovate the fruity offering through adaptation to its formats by adding the gum bottle,” Reade told Asian Trader.
Innovation helps bring new consumers to the category and thus drives sales. Its popularity is clear with 33 percent of Refreshers shoppers being new to gum.
SKITTLES Giants Crazy Sours also fits into this trend. They are three times the size of standard SKITTLES and have a soft chewy centre designed to strike taste buds with sourness, delivering an intense, fruity, mouth-watering flavour.
Premiumisation is a huge trend when it comes to chocolates. Customers are seen reaching out for premium brands- both for self-consumption as well as gifting purposes- and are ready to pay higher prices.
As veganism continues to green-sweep the country, the confectionery aisle too is affected and is seeing a new wave of trends and product innovation.
Seeing strong trends for vegan and plant-based products, wholesale supplier Cotswold Fayre has launched Jealous Sweets, LoveRaw and Rhythm 108 to its portfolio.
Existing brands such as Doisy and Dam, have also introduced new vegan SKUs, with Doisy & Dam vegan dark chocolate becoming one of the company’s best sellers.
Well&Truly, one of the fastest growing snack brands in the UK, known for their wickedly addictive crisps, has announced the launch of their vegan and ethical chocolate in three different variations- Oat Milk, Salted Caramel, and Caramelised Hazelnuts.
Sustainability is on top of consumer’s minds and rules buying habits in this aisle as well.
“Mars Wrigley understands the great importance for chocolate to be made fairly and sustainably, and when it is, you can enjoy it that much more,” Reade said, adding that Galaxy has been and continues to work on improving the sustainability of chocolate and cocoa sourced for Galaxy smooth products is “responsibly sourced”.
A 2021 survey found almost 80 percent of consumers are taking steps to reduce their single-use plastics use – which includes the millions of plastic confectionery wrappers that are discarded every month that will take decades to deteriorate.
Pioneering brands such as Prodigy offer plastic-free wrappers which will biodegrade over a few months – much better for the environment.
Plant-based chocolate brand Prodigy is the country’s first plastic negative chocolate, and is aimed to make the future of chocolate not only healthier, but more sustainable. This plant-based range is made using all natural premium nutrient-rich ingredients. Each bar contains less than half the sugar as compared to its counterparts and is high in fibre, free from gluten, palm oil and refined sugar and vegan friendly.
Prodigy range perfectly suited for on-the-go consumption, offering a great impulse solution. Its range of six bars are in a classic countline format and around 35-45g retailing for £1,75 RSP.
With consumers making more conscious choices, Cotswold Fayre too has added plastic-free chewing gum from Nuud to their range. With many brands tackling the issue of plastic in their packaging, Nuud are also eradicating the plastic in chewing gum by using sustainably harvested tree sap as its gum base.
What’s New
Easter this year is set to be extra sweet as Hancocks is coming up with its own Easter range.
“For every customer’s sharing needs during the season, we have lots of fun options including Bonds Chick and Bunny Mallow Bag, filled to the brim with Easter shaped treats,” Chrish Smith from Hancocks told Asian Trader.
“Popular among customers are the Bonds Spring Tipple sare bags, Let The Good Times Be Gin, Shakin’ It From Mo Head To Mojitoes and the brand new I Like Pina Coladas.”
The supplier is also offering a limited edition of Bond Hoppy Easter Shaker Cups. The 260g Cup is full of delicious, colourful treats including bunny and chick marshmallows, gummy eggs and bunny heads and white chocolate snowies.
Brand new lines by Hancocks also include the super exciting Vimto Fried Egg share bags.
“These are sure to be in demand among Vimto lovers, mixing the classic well-loved flavour with an Easter themed shape,” Smith said.
Exclusive to Hancocks is also the novelty range of Crazy Candy Factory Funny Dancing Duck- a tube filled with yummy sweets and topped with a dancing duck figure which is sure to gain attention from customers of all ages. These fun and interactive novelty items are also a great value item for younger customers.
Also available for the first time this Easter is a special mixed gift package by Cadbury containing five filled eggs – two Cadbury Creme Eggs, two Caramel Eggs and one Oreo egg. The packs, RRP £3.14, are available now.
Also new for 2022 is Cadbury Twirl Orange Large Egg and Daim Heritage Egg.
Vegan and free-from chocolate brand NOMO too has a new Creamy Choc Egg and Monster Lolly, the latest iteration of NOMO’s Kids Nomsters range. Vegan and totally free from dairy, they are ideal for little ones.
Prodigy has also introduced a brand-new Salted Caramel Chocolate Egg. In line with the rest of Prodigy’s product portfolio, the irresistibly indulgent Salted Caramel Chocolate Egg contains less than half the sugar as compared to a typical filled egg and no refined sugar.
Hotel Chocolat, has announced its Mother's Day collection for 2022. The range includes plenty of gifts that mum will love, from chocolate boxes to tasty tipples.
While the brand’s Mother's Day Sleekster is all-time bestseller, Hotel Chocolat is also selling a H-Box for Mother's Day, which contains 14 chocolates and is priced at £13.50. Or, for a little gift to sit perfectly alongside flowers, the Pocket Collection contains eight chocolates and is priced at just £8.50.
For Mother’s Day, Hancocks is also offering chocolate confectionery in an unmatched range of branded chocolate boxes, share bags and selection boxes.
When it comes to seasonal occasions, one sure shot avenue of sales is Cadbury range.
UK’s favourite Cadbury is expanding its range by launching Cadbury Caramilk Buttons. The Cadbury Caramilk tablet was the third best-selling NPD last year, and the single bar was the ninth best-selling NPD, despite only launching in July.
Available from April, the new launch will help retailers tap into more shopper occasions with the popular sharing bag format, perfect for “Afternoon Sharing” and “Big Night In” occasions.
Merchandising it sweet
The confectionery market is a hugely important category for the convenience channel. Retailers should make sure they cater to the big night in trend, as well as on-the-go consumption.
Covid has dampened the spirits a lot in this section as socialising reduced to a large extent. Now that restrictions have ended, Reade from Mars Wrigley advises retailers to stock something from every range.
“At Mars Wrigley, we think every moment should be celebrated, not least because of the lasting impacts of Covid-19. That is why we are focusing on the all-important ‘mini-moments’.”
“Consumer favourites including, Celebrations, Galaxy Bars as well as Galaxy and Maltesers Truffles will be at the forefront of this initiative, encouraging consumers to make the most of every mini-moment,” Reade said.
Mars Wrigley portfolio includes the number one NPD in the premium boxed confectionery market with the MALTESERS Truffles and GALAXY Truffles. Similar to this, the indulgent milk chocolate GALAXY Truffles come encased in smooth GALAXY milk chocolate and are housed in a premium packaged box.
Convenience is key for consumers, as they want to be able to enter a store and easily find what they are looking for, Reade said, adding that cross merchandising can be useful for retailers looking to boost basket spend and generate impulse sales.
Nearly half (45 percent) of confectionery products are picked up from the main fixtures. Retailers should place their confectionery items on these fixtures to increase visibility and drive sales.
Clearly engaging POS will play a large role in increasing basket spend, alongside placing the items at “eye level-buy level”, which has been shown to boost sales by up to 20 percent.
Smith from Hancocks believes that smaller convenience stores should ensure they are well stocked with impulse, novelty sugar confectionery and top selling gifting products all the year round.
“On top of this, convenience stores should be on top of stocking for seasonal periods weeks ahead so that they can meet consumer needs and capitalise on seasonal gifting sales.
“When it comes to merchandising, retailers should make the most of aisle-end displays in stores and use them to showcase easy to grab sugar confectionery items such as our Bonds Sharing Bags and Shaker Cups,” Smith said.
Themed shelving and displays in store are a great way for retailers to encourage seasonal sales and appeal to customers of all ages.
Impulse purchase runs very high when it comes to chocolates and confectioneries.
Studies show about 23 percent of shoppers in independent and symbol stores buy something on impulse and 17 percent of these impulse purchases are confectionery. 63 percent of shoppers purchase on impulse because of visibility, further highlighting the importance of smart store layouts and promotional activity, with 28 percent of shoppers purchasing due to promotion or PMP.
“Impulse Purchasing is increasing +106 percent so having eye-catching displays are really important to engage shoppers in Independent and Symbol stores,” Burchell from Bestway said, pointing out that during events like Mother’s Day one-third shoppers purchase gifts from front of store displays.
“One-fourth of all shoppers in convenience make purchases based on promotions so clearly displaying promotions and price mark packs will engage shoppers.”
iStock image
With the rise in health consciousness, younger customers are now more sugar aware and ethically conscious. They want to know exactly how many grams of sugar are contained, the percentage of cocoa content, and how the cocoa was sourced.
To tap this trend, retailers should make sure to stock low-sugar, high protein versions of classic branded bars. The normal full sugar bars are not being replaced here but the healthier versions that have been launched are received well by the shoppers.
Since Britons are becoming increasingly health conscious, founder of Prodigy Snacks Sameer Vaswani strongly advises retailers to tap the trend by stocking just the right range of products.
“Retailers looking to boost basket spend and meet the needs of increasingly health conscious consumers should ensure they capitalise on the ‘healthier’ options of bars, like plant-based chocolate options for the growing number of consumers looking to reduce their dairy consumption for health or sustainability reasons,” Vaswani told Asian Trader, adding that retailers should also stock low sugar options/more fiber ‘better for you’ alternatives to main players.
Vaswani suggests grouping ‘healthier’ / premium offers together in a ‘healthier snacking’ section to help consumers looking for better alternatives when they want to indulge.
“Independent retailers can capitalise on offering these new and exciting brands such as Prodigy to offer a more interesting range and breadth to their consumers compared to the often slow-changing ranges of bigger retailers,” Vaswani pointed out.
HFSS: Challenge or opportunity?
The UK government's anti-obesity drive such as upcoming HFSS regulations plus consumers’ increased health consciousness seemingly posing a threat to chocolate volume sales.
Burchell, however, believes that HFSS regulations will have an impact on this category, but it should be “business as usual for all independent retailers, wholesalers and a majority of symbols”, who are exempt from the upcoming regulatory changes.
In fact, HFSS presents a strong opportunity for independent retailers, particularly for those that are impulse led.
“HFSS presents an opportunity for smaller convenience stores to take full advantage of front of store, gondola ends displays – whereas other stores will be restricted,” Burchell told Asian Trader.
Retailers should also give space to new launches as makers are also coming up with innovative products that will bypass the new regulations owing to their healthier ingredients and low sugar content.
iStock image
Plant-based company Pri’s Puddings is the country’s one of the first to reformulate its products to make them HFSS compliant. For example, each snack in the brand’s Pocket-Sized Pies range contains just five whole-food ingredients.
Pocket-Sized Pies come in the flavours Pecan, Peanut Butter, Cashew, and Choco. They now contain 50 percent less sugar than other mainstream snacks marketed as healthy — just 5-6g, compared to an average of 12-18g for their competitors. The snacks also come in fully recyclable packaging.
Protein products supplier Grenade has revealed a Peanut Butter & Jelly (PB&J) bar. Packing 20g protein and just 1.8g sugar, the firm claims that the bar is a healthier alternative to high sugar confectionery, with the added power of protein to keep fitness fanatics on track. Sprinkled with peanut pieces, each milk chocolate-coated bar features peanut butter-flavoured nougat and a strawberry caramel layer.
Wrap
To capitalise on the profit potential of this sweet segment, Reade believes retailers should aim to make themselves aware of consumer trends and behaviours.
With consumers returning to pre-pandemic patterns of movement and celebratory occasions are back, consumers are now looking for their favourite products to share in those together moments.
As consumer tastes are constantly evolving with healthier organic foods taking the spotlight, demand for contemporary chocolates are seeing a slight dip. However, makers are responding well here by coming up with innovations like reduced-sugar and vegan alternatives to popular products.
Single-origin and high-cocoa products are anticipated to perform particularly well over the next five years, while packs and products designed for sharing are likely to boost sales.
With inflation predicted to touch sky-high levels and disposable incomes expected to remain low in the short term, retailers should also note that these conditions are expected to drive more demand for cheaper products.
Stocking a wide mix of all-time favourites and new product launches is the best bet here.
While catering to the needs of little ones and younger shoppers is most crucial for c-stores, retailers should also make sure to consider stocking dairy-free, high fibre, low sugar products as well as cheaper options so as not to lose any customer.
As the saying goes, where there is chocolate, there will be happiness. Similarly in retail stores, where there is chocolate, there will be impulse purchases and boost-up sales.