A new season?

So it’s almost December, and with that comes the Cadbury Crème Egg of course. It used not to show its head until January or February but the date has been creeping back and savvy retailers get in there first for early impulse sales – even in the run up to Christmas.

Is it a world gone mad? Perhaps. But in a competitive confectionery industry it is becoming more and more evident that impulsive spring treats are a big sales opportunity – especially for smaller stores that thrive on shoppers buying on impulse.

 

We no longer stop at the trusty Crème Egg of course. Oh no. Today, there is a giddy selection of seasonally themed treats, generally priced under £1, gearing up for fast sales from January onwards – helping to get us in the mood for Easter apparently. The Malteaster Bunny is such an example and there are many more key branded products to contemplate including: Galaxy Bubbles filled egg, Aero filled egg, Cadbury Caramel filled egg, Kinder Surprise, Smarties Little Choc Chick, Mini Lindt Bunnies… oh how the list goes on.

According to data from Nestlé Confectionery, 70% of Easter confectionery sales are from “immediate consumption” products, which over index in the early season. Coupled with this, the Seasonal Impulse sector is worth £122 million in spring confectionery sales. However you look at it, we’ve created a new season amongst the confectionery sales calendar – the season for impulsive spring treats.

So get yourselves ready for some early bumper sales, just as soon as you can say “Happy New Year”. The wholesalers and other suppliers will be encouraging you to stock up and offering plenty of options to choose from. Whilst well-known brands can offer familiarity (and I’m afraid to say that Crème Egg has become an essential product to stock), there are many little known branded ideas in addition to premium chocolate treats, designed with the spring season in mind.

Consider your target audience and what they might like to treat themselves with periodically. Don’t forget your younger customers too – all ages are buying in to our new season.

Stocking from January, we’re told that sales can be strong for around seven weeks, with a last minute surge in the week before Easter. So our advice? Get them in early and stock them right up to Easter Sunday. This is a season that you cannot afford to miss.

www.sweetretailing.co.uk

Easter could have been bigger!

According to retail and FMCG market intelligence company IRI, the supermarkets missed out on Easter egg sales this year, to the benefit of smaller and convenience stores who held their nerve with stock right up until the day. So the message is that Easter confectionery sales, whilst good, could actually have been greater than they were.

Measuring sales across all of the major UK grocery multiples, IRI suggests that Easter confectionery was up 8.6% during the five week period before Easter Saturday; better than expected.

March saw plenty of heavy promotional activity in some supermarkets and this helped to drive sales upwards – volume rising by 15.1% on last year. 

Despite all of this growth, IRI has estimated that a whopping £5.2m of confectionery sales was missed out on during the final week before Easter Day.

“We’ve seen some reports suggesting that supermarkets were running out of eggs in the final week before Easter,” according to Martin Wood, Head of Strategic Insight – Retail for IRI. “So while sales did increase in that final week, they didn’t increase as much as they had in the earlier pre-Easter period starting in early March. I would estimate that the missed opportunity was £5.2m – this is the difference between the increase in sales that occurred in the final week and the increase that would have happened if the average sales growth over the 5-week Lent period had been maintained.”

What this suggests to us is that we’re seeing a resurgence of seasonal event management in retail this year, following strong Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day sales. But it’s also clear that the major supermarkets underestimated the demand for Easter and that other retailers, like convenience stores, benefitted from this. It’s reasonable to assume that they could have done a lot better this year if they hadn’t sold out of eggs!”

www.sweetretailing.co.uk

 

Would you like plastic with that?

The annual report on Easter egg packagng is out once again, thanks to Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson. Apparently in the UK, we still place 3,000 tonnes of waste into landfill, having unwrapped and enjoyed our Easter eggs.

The worst offenders were reported to be Thorntons and Marks and Spencer, still using too much plastic when packaging their Easter egg range. Nestle, Mars and Cadbury however were praised for greatly improving the situation and working with much more cardboard. Indeed Nestle recently announced that the packaging in its 2012 Easter egg range is 100% recyclable – a bold statement if ever there was one! 

The confectionery industry must take responsibility for its potential to make landfill waste, as should many other grocery industries. It is clearly a tricky balance between good presentation, safe transportation and cost management on the one side and minimising waste on the other. But if Nestle can do it…?

I guess the challenge is that confectionery shoppers, who more often than not are purchasing on impulse, do not necessarily stop and think “No! I won’t buy this one because I cannot recycle the plastic!” If the price, presentation and content fit the bill, the quick answer is just to buy it and be done. Can we blame ourselves when life is so busy and budgets are squeezed?

I would be interested to hear from any retailers that feel their customers do prioritise this issue at shelf level. Perhaps you use it as a USP for your Easter egg range?

So whilst we bash the big manufacturers and retailers over the head for producing too much landfill waste, are we as shoppers truly voting with our purchases to demand confectionery and indeed Easter eggs that are packaged with the environment in mind?

www.sweetretailing.co.uk

Chokablok confectionery

Oh dear. It’s been reported that Tesco is to extend its own label Chokablok brand into the confectionery aisle, just in time for the Easter egg onslaught. Previously kept for premium ice creams, the Chokablok brand is to sport a range of premium Easter eggs to include names such as Billionaires Dynamite Egg and Starstruck Supernova Egg. It is also being mooted that Chokablok chocolate bars are to follow.

Well, the Chokablok Easter egg packaging and presentation looks ok actually. Whether shoppers will flock to buy Chokablok eggs instead of the usual Cadbury Buttons, Smarties and the like, only time will tell.  

With regard to the “supermarkets vs. all other confectionery retailers” discussion at Easter time, it certainly confirms that the likes of Tesco are only going to bite in deeper to retain and grow their share. 

But this is shell eggs. There is so much more to Easter confectionery than shell eggs! And if you are a smaller retailer, you only need a small piece of it to really boost your sales during the spring months. So surely it is a case of keeping to your planned path, listening closely to your customers, offering a creative and different range of Easter confectionery whilst leaving the shell egg battle to start and finish in the supermarkets.

Keep up to date on UK confectionery discussion at Sweet Retailing!