Magazine: We need sweets even when times are hard!

According to the Association of Hungarian Confectionery Manufacturers, by the end of 2020 the confectionery market managed to recover from the shock it had suffered before Easter.  Secretary general Gábor Intődy told: the pandemic had the biggest negative effect on small sweets companies, which had earlier managed to get into airport shops, city centre stores and exclusive cafés. Cocoa, coffee and vegetable oils are becoming more expensive, but labour force related expenditure, packaging material and transportation problems also increase production costs sharply.

Innovation accelerated during the pandemic

Health, functionality and innovations

Shoppers are turning towards healthy sweets – functional sweets, lactose-, sugar- and gluten-free products, and light products belong here. At the same time consumers are also going in the direction of high quality confectionery, many of them now prefer buying smaller but better quality sweets.

Confectionery is one of the most innovative sectors in the food industry. Hungarian manufacturers are currently working on making production more sustainable by modernising their factories. They also invest in automation and other production technologies, so that they can react to changing consumer needs and market conditions quickly and flexibly, adding whole grain, organic, sugar-free, protein-enriched and high cocoa content products to their portfolios. //

The above article has also been published in Issue 2021/12-01 of Trade magazin.