They can spice up grilling!

Tímea Szűcs-Bundik, brand experience manager of Unilever Magyarország Kft.:

This year Unilever keeps strengthening the Hellmann’s range of barbecue sauces with flavours that really go well with the dishes that are popular in Hungary. Innovations include a cucumber tartar sauce, a sweet chilli sauce, and they will support the unbroken popularity of burgers with a spicy burger sauce enriched with cucumber and onion pieces. Globus sauces get a new, more youthful look in 2024.

Rita Bazsó
marketing director
Univer Product

In sales of various types of wet condiments, 2023 brought a few-percent drop in volume, with the exception of mustard, where the plunge was bigger, informs Rita Bazsó, marketing director of Univer Product Zrt.

“Univer stood out in branded product sales, producing significant growth in the mayonnaise and ketchup categories, while maintaining its position in the mustard market”,

she points out.

Although consumer demand has shifted slightly towards larger product sizes over the past few years, because these offer better value for money, each format and size has its own customer base.

A successful brand extension

Recently Univer has been focusing on the Erős Pista brand, which was successfully combined with core products such as mayonnaise, ketchup and garlic cream. What is more, Univer has also established manufacturing partnerships resulting in the launch of Erős Pista flavoured pinched noodles, pork liver and Christmas candy. Erős Pista has also showed up in the burgers of the biggest fast food chain. Koch’s Torma Kft. is expecting a better BBQ season than last year.

Key account manager Zsolt Bódis:

“The BBQ category is producing the biggest growth, as the segment is regularly expanded by manufacturers. Shoppers who buy these products typically don’t switch to cheaper condiments and dressings, as high quality products also come at affordable prices”. In 2024 the company rolls out the new KOCH’s Green Herb salad dressing and KOCH’s Grillissimo and KOCH’s Diablo tomato sauces.

“So far our marketing strategy has proved to be successful, but it is important to be receptive to new ideas and opportunities both in ATL and BTL”,

adds key account manager Gábor Mika.

Hard to compete with private labels

“You can’t compete with the two to two and a half times cheaper shelf price of private label products, so nine out of ten people take them off the shelf”,

explains the commercial director. His view is that in the wet condiment segment, apart from the two classic Hungarian brands and PL products, less well-known manufacturers are finding it difficult to get by, even in the light of the assortment reductions made last year. Kalocsai Fűszerpaprika Zrt. is in a difficult situation in this respect and they can only create new innovations in private label production at the moment. They would already be happy if they could at least maintain the current product selection.

It sells better in large quantities

The “official” summer barbecue season is starting earlier and lasting longer: outdoor grilling is slowly becoming part of our everyday lives, and it is no longer just a summer activity, says Henrietta Csicselyné Biró, sales director of Thymos Hungária Kft.

Spice marinades are coming up

“As these products have an excellent price-value ratio, we have been able to deal with the business challenges of inflation more easily and achieved growth in both volume and sales”,

says Nóra Czugéber, senior brand manager of Lacikonyha Magyarország Kft.

The company launched several new products last year. In 2024 they are working on improving recipes, introducing new flavours and the packaging design of spices and spice blends are revamped. Lacikonyha has removed the added sodium glutamate from the recipes of all our products. In 2024 they are launching a liquid seasoning developed specifically for pickling vegetables. In the first half of the year 5 new spice blends hit the shops, in 80g and 100g size.

Expanding the consumer base with free-from products

Their Thousand Island, Caesar, yogurt and French garlic dressings are preservative- and gluten-free, but they aren’t lactose-free. So far only the Oriental olive oil, apple cider vinegar and wine vinegar based dressings have represented the free-from category, but now Eisberg wants to build on this line with new lactose- and additive-free vegan salad oils, in order to conquer new consumer groups. This May the company will put cold-pressed, natural salad oils on the market in 3 flavours: pumpkin seed oil-roasted pumpkin seed oil, Turkish hazelnut oil-pistachio oil, and a lime oil blend.

Flavour testing

“We are in the lucky position of working with strong brands in the sauce market, such as Maille Dijon mustard and Kikkoman soy sauce, which have relatively few (high-quality) alternatives among private label products”,

says brand manager Anett Monori.

They were able to produce a big volume sales growth in the Dijon mustard segment compared to the previous year. Maresi is considering the launch of several different new soy sauce formats and is constantly testing new flavours – recommended by manufacturers – among their customers, to see which would be received well in the Hungarian market. In the mustard segment they will introduce new formats already this year. //