Rachel Wells is UK Sales Director for St Pierre Groupe. Almost one year into the role, we sat down with Wells to understand how its flagship brand – St Pierre – is performing.
Wells also discussed which categories are ‘ones to watch’ in bakery and what’s next for the UK’s best-tasting brioche brand.
How is the St Pierre brand currently performing?
St Pierre is a brand going from strength to strength, more than doubling sales in the last year with growth of 107 per cent in UK value sales, but perhaps more impressively, 56 per cent in volume – bucking the wider category trends, once again.
St Pierre is driving an uplift in the adoption of brioche in consumers’ continued desire for premium, authentic products that make elevating at-home menus, easy. Across the board, brioche is a market worth almost £97 million in the UK, up 39 per cent in the last 52 weeks (IRI, UK Market to 07/10/2023).
The reason bakery has continued to see premiumisation thrive is because it’s a relatively low-value category. Consumers are spending more wisely, but that doesn’t always mean spending less. St Pierre communicates quality and authenticity at every touchpoint – and the perceived value attached to doing so must not be under-estimated. Consumers know that consistent quality that elevates a meal to restaurant-quality is worth it, especially when the additional cost is a pound or less.
Gains in the last 12 months for St Pierre have come from significant distribution increases with the UK’s major multiple retailers, a prolific stream of new product development and increased investment in marketing to build the brand following St Pierre Groupe’s acquisition by Grupo Bimbo in October 2022.
Our core range of brioche buns and hot dog rolls has continued to fly this year as shoppers embrace premium options that allow for easy upgrades to at-home menus. Our Seeded Brioche Burger Buns are up 84 per cent, our Brioche Buns are up 164 per cent and Brioche Hot Dog Rolls are up 68 per cent in the last year.1
Whilst we’ve continued to drive sales of the core range, our new product development has not slowed. We launched five new products in 2022 and this year delivered a further four new SKUs, with our first-ever seasonal launch – St Pierre’s Chocolate Brioche Wreath – for Christmas 2023.
Our team is adept at developing products that cater to multiple meal occasions, but we highlighted breakfast as an area of focus heading in to 2023. As a result, St Pierre is the fastest-growing brand in morning goods2. Increased distribution on our multipack range of Brioche Swirls and Chocolate Chip Brioche Swirls and Chocolate-filled crepes has driven sales growth of 229 per cent, 278 per cent and 264 per cent, respectively.3
Trends
Premiumisation is driving increased sales for retailers in bread and rolls. Infact, it is growth in rolls that is driving the category forward both in terms of innovation and sector spend. St Pierre has been pivotal in that. St Pierre brioche provides an easy way to elevate everyday meals and the way we communicate the brand through marketing, in-store and merchandising means that consumers are choosing to trade up. In turn, that drives incremental sales in other areas of the store because shoppers trading up on their bread carrier are more likely to spend a little more on accompanying purchases, like meats and cheeses.
At-home socialising is also a trend we continue to cater to, creating a demand moment that applies for shoppers all year-round. Products that encourage sharing or ‘help’ hosts to impress guests will always appeal. Our Brioche Mini Buns launched last year to cater to the trend for sharing plates which grew in foodservice first, before being replicated at home. After launching with ASDA in Q4 last year, St Pierre Brioche Mini Buns are now available via Tesco and Morrisons stores nationwide.
Furthermore, Christmas last year prompted the launch of St Pierre’s very first seasonal product – designed specifically for hosts looking to elevate seasonal dishes at home. Made available via ASDA and Morrisons over the Christmas sales period, the Chocolate Brioche Wreath was developed to cater to the growing demand for Christmas centrepieces seen in 2022, whilst the chocolate base appealed to new consumers. The successful launch will no doubt help further drive sales of St Pierre’s popular Vanilla Brioche Tear and Share which is available year-round through ASDA, Morrisons and selected CoOp stores.
Do you have any further NPD to talk about at the moment?
In 2022, St Pierre launched five new products into the market and this year, we’ve continued to drive innovation with four new products available on UK shelves. All of our new products are driven by insight and the huge role that premiumisation is playing in the bakery category. The demand for premium products is now being felt across all subsectors and that’s why we launched St Pierre Belgian Waffles with Butter and St Pierre Belgian Waffles with Chocolate Chips in Q3 this year.
This product launch is exciting for us – it’s brand new to our product range and it’s a new format too, giving real on-shelf standout. More importantly, however, the quality of our Belgian Waffles is second-to-none. St Pierre is all about elevating the everyday and waffles are not traditionally seen as a premium product. What we have managed to do, is offer a premium solution in a category that is growing at 14 per cent, but will no doubt be helped by the addition of an innovative new product.5
Waffle consumption increased in 2020 with the arrival of lockdown and greater demand for variety in breakfast and at-home snacking. Those consumers are still looking for elevated meals and St Pierre Belgian Waffles will appeal to the increased number of adults looking for indulgence. We’re offering a convenient product that’s versatile; perfect in savoury and sweet recipes whether at-home or on-the-go, and all without compromising on superior quality and fantastic taste – the benchmark of the St Pierre brand.
How is the rising cost of living affecting the market?
Shoppers are still elevating meals at home because it is more cost-effective than going out. There is such opportunity for retailers to inspire shoppers, offering affordable luxuries at a time when they are – economically speaking – more discerning. That’s why we’ve also expanded our merchandising approaches with UK retailers this year – offering new ways to inspire shoppers in-store, increase dwell time and ultimately, drive sales.
How can supermarkets maximise their bread sales and how do you work with supermarkets to help them grow their sales?
Bakery is a fantastic category in which to experiment with merchandising solutions, because shoppers are looking for and open to inspiration. St Pierre has already demonstrated this in the US market, where we launched our innovative Eiffel Tower racks more than six years ago. In the past year, we have been sharing our learnings from the US market with our UK retail partners, working together to drive increased sales through improved shopper experiences.
In ASDA and Morrisons stores, we have implemented Eiffel Tower racks to highlight our product authenticity, interrupt footfall to engage shoppers and ultimately, increase sales. Early results show positive impacts for Eiffel Towers increased sales by more than 50 per cent in some stores (St Pierre Groupe internal data, October 2023).
We also launched branded bays this year, to further improve the shopper experience in-store. In the stores where we trialled branded bays, we saw units per store, per week increase by more than 40 per cent (St Pierre Groupe internal data, October 2023).
Clearly, there is opportunity for retailers to drive interest in the fixture with innovative merchandising which increases dwell time and ultimately, sales. We are looking forward to working with our retail partners in 2024 to further improve merchandising, taking learnings around cross-merchandising and dual-siting and applying them to the UK market.
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