Magazine: Flours for cakes and other baked goods

The end of the year represents a high season in the flour market too. Ákos Ferenczik, marketing manager of GoodMills Magyarország Kft. told our magazine that sales of cake flours and wholemeal flours are growing the fastest. As for product size, the 1kg variants are still dominant. However, as more and more special products are becoming available, the number of 0.5kg flour products is growing. At the end of the year 2-5kg flours also start selling better.

András Szentirmai
marketing expert
Első Pesti Malom

According to András Szentirmai, marketing expert of Első Pesti Malom Zrt., since the main factor in shaping the price of flour is the price of wheat, and most shoppers decide which flour to buy based on price, retailers are focusing on ‘standard fine flour’ and make mills compete to get the lowest price possible from them. At the same time there is growing consumer demand for high quality, special flours – many shoppers are starting to realise that it is worth paying 10-20 percent more for good quality flour. Gábor Bokros, deputy marketing director of Gyermelyi Zrt. observed: now that people have started earning more, they are willing to pay more for higher quality products characterised by higher gluten content – in the case of Gyermelyi the latter is minimum 30 percent, which is much higher than the EU or the Hungarian standards.

Sales of GoodMills Magyarország’s products are growing steadily in the flour market. From the end-of-year sales boom their Nagyi Titka brand profits the most, mainly the cake flour range that consists of three flour types. This brand also serves the needs of consumers who like to bake bread or pizza; those shoppers choose Nagyi Titka too who follow a healthier lifestyle. The Nagyi Titka brand has been the market leader in a very much promotion driven market since 2015, proving that brand loyalty does exist in the flour category too. Currently the company is busy renewing the Nagyi Titka portfolio.

Első Pesti Malom is a key player in the market of special flours. There are more than 50 different flours in their product selection, which are made from 8 cereal types. Special flours are purchased by a group of consumers who bake at home throughout the year. The company’s latest product is triticale flour. Első Pesti Malom gives priority to innovation work. They cooperate with the Cereal Research Institute in Szeged and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, plus based on consumer feedback, they develop products from new, exciting cereal varieties. The company thinks that they can even start trends in the world of flours – although it is far from easy – for instance with coloured flours and triticale flour, which perfectly fits into the current health trend.

Gábor Bokros
vice marketing
director
Gyermelyi

Gyermelyi Zrt. firmly believes that the potential for growth lies in strong brand like theirs. Promotion campaigns work well for Gyermelyi products. Right now the company isn’t working on a major innovation; smaller development work is most of the time done in the segment of products made for large and industrial users. A few years ago Gyermelyi changed its image: all products got a standardised brand logo that now has a central position on flour and other products.

Riceland-Magyarország Kft. is active in the small but promising segment of rice flours. Managing director Mihály Bencs told our magazine that there is a small sales growth at the end of the year. He added that the proportion of wholemeal rice flour is about 40 percent of the sales of classic white rice flour. The target group is primarily those consumers who are sensitive to gluten. Riceland-Magyarország’s experience is that shoppers want reliable and constant good quality, so basically the products sell themselves. //