Levi Boorer is Customer Development Director at Ferrero. The Ferrero portfolio includes some of the UK’s favourite confectionery products, extending beyond confectionery into spreads and other sweet packaged foods. The core ranges enable retailers to offer market-leading products all year round, with Ferrero launching seasonal lines of its Ferrero Rocher, Collection, Thorntons and Kinder ranges to support further when category sales peak.
How would you sum up the Ferrero brand’s history?
Present in the UK since 1966, Ferrero is a leading family-owned global company and is the third-largest player in the global sweet packaged foods market. The long-term success of each of our brands is based on quality products which are carefully crafted, and supported with significant investment, to deliver great tastes for customers and strong profits for retailers, with price-marked packs available across the portfolio to support the channel.
Can you talk us through your brand portfolio?
Our unique and iconic brands are well-loved throughout the UK and include Kinder, tic tac, Ferrero Rocher, Thorntons, Nutella B-ready and Nutella. Across each of those brands, we have products that meet different consumption occasions and audiences, such as premium gifting (Thorntons Classic and Continental boxed, Ferrero Rocher, Raffaello and Ferrero Collection), on-the-go snacking and countlines (Nutella B-ready and Kinder Bueno) and breakfast with our popular Nutella spread. Beyond that, our Tic Tac and Kinder Surprise ranges suit varied audiences including families, and present significant opportunities to retailers.
How is the UK chocolate confectionery market developing?
There are a number of product formats and occasions that are helping to drive sales and bring growth to the category, but we are seeing that the move towards more premium products is having a positive impact across the board. When looking at boxed chocolates alone, premium options are growing more than five times the rate of the category overall, as shoppers are looking for quality over quantity when it comes to confectionery. Delivering high-quality products in controlled portion sizes ties in with this trend perfectly and has been an important part of Ferrero for many years now, as underlined by our ‘Quality at Heart’ approach.
Beyond that, gifting continues to be a compelling driver of confectionery sales too, particularly with premium products and boxed offerings. Those factors have always been underpinned across the Ferrero boxed chocolate portfolio, where our ranges are recognised as high-quality products that present an ideal gift for a wide range of occasions throughout the year.
To better meet the demand for premium gifting options, we recently revitalised our Thorntons Classic range to give it a premium and contemporary look and feel, as well as offering a range of pack sizes to suit every gifting occasion. The update champions Thorntons’ long heritage in crafting premium and high-quality chocolates, and offers an improved assortment that represents the UK’s most-loved flavours, including the introduction of three new delicious chocolates.
How are you helping your retail customers grow their business?
We understand how important it is for retailers to implement visually-striking displays in store, to encourage consideration while raising awareness of new products or specific occasions. Eye-catching, well-maintained displays also contribute to the overall appearance of the space, so it is therefore important that we work in partnership with retailers and support them with tailored category plans, while also helping them to understand how people shop to meet those needs in store and online.
Confectionery as a category has a number of key seasonal peaks – such as Christmas, Easter and Diwali – but there are many all-year-round opportunities and occasions that retailers can support too, such as the Big Night In. By helping retailers understand and activate around these opportunities, and by using our shopper data to share insights, we can help retailers with their ranging decisions, supporting the best sellers with seasonal products as appropriate.
How can retailers maximise sales of your products?
It is important that retailers are fully aware of their shoppers’ needs, and cater to as many different shopper missions as possible. Retailers should therefore take the time to understand what encourages people to visit the store, and set it up in the right way to suit what shoppers are looking for. Within confectionery, different product lines are more suited for each mission and present new opportunities. For example, people are now choosing to entertain more at home, which is making the opportunity for sharing products bigger than ever. Kinder Choco-Bons are perfect for sharing at home and are often available in limited-edition seasonal packs to help retailers capture shoppers’ attention in store at key trading peaks. Elsewhere, Kinder products present great options to suit shoppers on-the-go.
What are you doing to promote Ferrero brands to consumers?
We work closely with wholesalers and retailers to ensure we are helping them to get the right products in front of shoppers in the most effective ways. This support includes providing effective signage to help signpost key the categories, brands and products they are looking for. Depots and stores share a number of opportunities to capture attention, so we also work to provide impactful end-of-aisle displays to provide secondary space to feature special promotions that span complementary categories. We share sales insights and industry trends with retailers in store and via our retailer hub, YourPerfectStore.co.uk, which inform retailers about new lines and the potential value to their store.
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