Not really a fruitful year

Anita Pusztai
marketing manager
Sió-Eckes

Sió-Eckes Kft. experienced growing value and volume sales in the first quarter of 2020 in the fruit juice, nectar and drink (FJND) market, but marketing manager Anita Pusztai added that the pandemic entailed a double-digit sales drop in April, which lasted for three months. She explained that the coronavirus had a negative impact on the sales of private label products too, but the shift towards private labels continued. Sales of 100-percent fruit juices and nectars kept growing fast in value, especially in the case of those with added vitamins and a beneficial health effect, such as hohes C.

András Palkó
marketing operations manager
Coca-Cola HBC
Magyarország

András Palkó, marketing operations manager of Coca-Cola HBC Magyarország revealed that Cappy sales also reduced during the pandemic. He added that shoppers became much more price-sensitive, but the latest research shows that after the first few panic-buying weeks of the pandemic, the lockdown brought planned shopping and consumers plan to keep this habit in the future as well. In the March-May period the HoReCa channel suffered badly, while retail was booming. However, only discounters managed to increase fruit juice sales.

Small-size products suffered

Adrienn Horváth
marketing director
Márka Üdítőgyártó

According to the Hungarian Mineral Water, Fruit Juice and Soft Drink Association (MAGYÜSZ), sales in the category reduced by 19 percent in the second quarter of the year – fruit drink sales dropped 14 percent – told Adrienn Horváth, Márka Üdítőgyártó Kft.’s marketing director. Sales of the company increased by 40 percent this spring, thanks to their innovation work and a promotion campaign. Sales of Márka Fruitica drinks didn’t decrease either if compared with the same period of 2019.

Mihály Kozma
sales director
Garden Juice

Garden Juice Kft.’s small-size products suffered the biggest blow in the spring months, but luckily their 3- and 5-litre products improved their sales performance in comparison with the first half of 2019. Sales director Mihály Kozma said: in physical stores private label sales are dominant, but in online shops branded fruit juices perform better.

Market restructuring takes a bit more time

Adrienn Horváth talked about how large-size products prevailed during the lockdown, while sales of small-size fruit juices purchased from vending machines and in cafeterias decreased. Luckily for the company, Márka has always been strong in the large-size segment. The biggest sales increase was generated by 1.5-litre Fruitica products. Mihály Kozma expects that from the second quarter of 2021 there will be a market restructuring and even more people will opt for a healthy lifestyle and drink 100-percent fruit juices.

Online sale improved

Anita Pusztai reported to us that sales in e-commerce soared this spring and this trend didn’t stop after the lockdown ended. Sió-Eckes Kft. is going to pay special attention to this channel in the near future. The products of the company have an exceptionally high share in online sales. András Palkó sees growing demand for healthier, high fruit content fruit juices with an added value. In his view, shoppers are happy to return to physical stores, but the share of online FMCG purchases is still much higher now than it was before the pandemic.

András Kuntner
business development
manager/retail
GfK

In the first half of 2020 Hungarian households purchased 7 percent more high-quality, 100-percent fruit juice than in the same period of 2019; at the same time sales of maximum 12-percent fruit content juices dropped 7.1 percent. Fruit mix juices remained the most popular as they represented 37 percent of sales. The average household purchased 2.1 litres of fruit juice (sales were up 7 percent) in the examined period, paying HUF 9,034. However, there were fewer buying occasions and buyers than before.

The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t really impact volume sales in March and April. There has been one big change, though: branded products used to have a bigger volume share than private label fruit juices, but this year sales of the latter improved by 6.8 percent as shoppers spent 14.7 percent more on the category per buying occasion. Discount supermarkets continued to increase their market share, which reached 41 percent. //