Strong brands bathed in milk

By: Szalai László Date: 2025. 02. 20. 14:34

Consumers are used to strong brands in the dairy snack category, and they expect and value the quality guarantees that brands offer. This makes the category more resistant to external market influences, and different saving techniques are observed by consumers in this category than in other markets.

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2025/2-3.

Planning with growth

Import Trade Hungary Kft. has earned the right to be the Hungarian distributor of the products of Austrian company TSC Food Products GmbH: Milka, Minions and Oreo dairy snacks and other sweets produced by the company.

“Both we and the manufacturer think 2024 was a successful year, and since we are starting with more customers in 2025, we are planning with a further 30-40% sales rise”,

says András Gurdon, sales director of Import Trade Hungary Kft.

He adds that brand power is working: those who eat Milka chocolate or Oreo biscuits are more likely to give Milka and Oreo dairy snacks a try. Milka dairy snacks are made with Milka chocolate and the Oreo variant tastes like Oreo cookies. Import Trade Hungary Kft. also distributes other milk-based desserts: Baileys, Daim, Oreo, Toblerone and Philadelphia cheesecakes, and Milka lava cakes.

Instead of downtiering, the recent period has brought about a much more pronounced shift towards more economical package sizes and multipacks

Striking development in the plant-based substitute segment too

Gábor Szommer
commercial director
Fino-Food

In the product category Fino-Food Kft. is present with the Fino Vegajó Vegan Bar vegan dessert bar, which is available in individual and multipack packaging. After its launch in autumn 2023 sales of the product increased steadily, and in the last quarter of 2024 sales of the individual pack more than doubled compared to the same period of the previous year.

“In January 2025 this year we joined the Veganuár™ challenge as the main sponsor with the Vegajó brand, and in January we contributed to the promotion of the activity with our own online campaign”,

recalls Gábor Szommer, commercial director of Fino-Food Kft.

Fino Vegajó Vegan Bar won the Inno d’Or – Innovation of the Year 2024 and the Best of the Best awards at the Innovation Day of Trade magazin.

Strong dairy snack brands make the category more resistant to external market influences

Another alternative: a chestnut delicacy

Even if it isn’t a dairy snack, chestnut bars are competing in the market as an alternative to the category. The leading distributor in this segment is Prima Maroni Kft., which offers chilled desserts under the brand names Gesztenye Marci and Geszti Eszti.

Gergely Rimár
CEO
Prima Maroni

“Our market is growing dynamically. Plain chestnut and cherry bars realise the majority of our sales, but sales of our XXL category are also growing rapidly. In 2024 we entered new retail networks and could also increase the number of items sold by our existing retailer partners”,

says Gergely Rimár, CEO of Prima Maroni Kft.

One of the main selling points for chestnut bars is that they can be enjoyed by people with lactose and gluten intolerance. Besides plain chestnut bars, the company also produces products filled with apricot, sour cherry, strawberry and raspberry jam. This year brought the debut of Gesztenye Marci Chestnut Bar 20g, which is often featured in school meals. //

Branded dairy snacks* continue to dominate*

Based on November 2024 MAT data, we can say that the dairy snack market grew by 6.3% in value and 1% in volume compared to the same period last year.

Guest writer:
József Scheiling
business development
lead
YouGov CPS Hungary

While this means a slower rate of expansion than in 2023, when the value growth was 26% and the volume increase was 3%, it is a positive sign that the significant price hikes of previous years are no longer experienced to the same extent. The number of buyers was up by 2% and reached a penetration rate of 63%.

Meanwhile, shopping frequency dropped 3% (to 11 times/year) and the average basket size grew by 2% (to 137g). Supermarkets’ share in sales rose from 14% to 16% in value, representing a 22% expansion in value and a 21% growth in volume.

The dominance of branded dairy snacks was unbroken: they have 87% of the market. This is significantly bigger than the 64%.average share for branded products in the FMCG market.

The role of promotions continued to strengthen, with the share of products sold this way increasing to 42% by value – up 3 percentage points on the previous year. //

New Pöttyös Protein Rudi

In January the latest Pöttyös Túró Rudi product, made with high protein content and 0% added sugar, appeared on store shelves. Available in both natural and raspberry flavours, Pöttyös Protein Rudi is produced with added whey proteins. The plain version contains 9.2g and there is 9g in the raspberry variant. Proteins play a vital role in the development, regeneration and maintenance of muscles and support bone health. The new Pöttyös dairy snack is also an excellent source of dietary fibre, thanks to the inulin it contains. //