Magazine: Consumers expect more from yogurts

In the past few months plain yogurt sales decreased in value and stayed put in volume, while fruit yogurt sales didn’t change in value but reduced in volume. Henriett Szabó-Spanyol, brand manager of FrieslandCampina Hungária ZRt. told our magazine that since the launch of their Landliebe brand their value sales increased dynamically in the fruit yogurt market. She sees growing demand for more expensive, high-quality products. There are more and more conscious yogurt buyers, and this is good news for the company because they can continue creating values and building their brands step by step.

In Hungary’s dairy product market yogurt is the third biggest category after milk and cheese. There are few Hungarian products and import dominates. Sándor Szentesi, sales director of Sole-Mizo Zrt. informed us that the large volumes of import probably also have to do with the fact that it is difficult to increase yogurt prices when ingredient prices go up. Mr Szentesi senses growing demand for special products such as lactose- and E-free yogurt like the company’s Gazda products.

Hungarians still prefer classic yogurt to yogurt drinks. Still, according to Bernadett Strasser-Kátai, owner and managing director of Real Nature Kft., in the otherwise stagnating market the category of yogurt drinks bigger than 500ml has managed to grow. Value sales of the multipack format also developed well, but this had a negative effect on yogurt volume sales. The fruit yogurt category is one of those product groups where the proportion of sales in promotion is the highest.

FrieslandCampina Hungária introduced the Landliebe brand to the Hungarian market 3 years ago. The company always does its best to add new flavours and formats to their existing product lines, and they also enter new segments from time to time. For instance they put the Landliebe yogurt drink on the market one year ago. The company has always treated Landliebe as a strategic brand, and they are building it in a conscious fashion, always planning for the long term. One of the tools for this is a well-defined brand positioning that is based on consumer needs, which is communicated using different strategies on various platforms.

The large majority of yogurts manufactured by Sole-Mizo meets some kind of special consumer need: the products are lactose-, sugar- or E-free, or they are made using special technology. In its communication strategy the company calls the attention of shoppers to these special characteristics, relying on one or more innovative tools at the same time. They pay special attention to POS advertising.

Real Nature Kft. came out with the 125g plastic-cup version of Good Milk in the flavoured yogurt drink segment. They also keep updating their Ciao dessert yogurt range and the Fasten product line – informed trade marketing manager Éva Gereczné Rudnai. At the moment they are working on the ProXY 290g product range, in order to adapt it more to consumer taste. Demand has increased for the Real Nature 4*100 yogurt drinks range recently. Under the Joya brand name the company has put a coconut-based yogurt product line on the market. Several more new products will hit the shops this year. In 2017 the company backs its Joya and Good Milk brands with a major ATL campaign.