Innovation willingness isn’t frozen in the chilled dairy snack category

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2024/2-3

Customers stick to their brands that continue to innovate: four out of five products sold are manufacturers’ brands

Gabriella Németh
senior channel &
category specialist
FrieslandCampina Hungária

“The double-digit category growth in value sales is driven by both sub-segments, with milk bars up 18% year-on-year and túró rudis growing by 11%”, says Gabriella Németh, senior channel and category specialist at FrieslandCampina Hungária Zrt.

There is a shift of purchases towards larger pack sizes in the Túró Rudi segment

New products without added sugar

FrieslandCampina has successfully expanded its product range despite a difficult year. Rudikornis Túró Rudi with raspberry and pomegranate immediately became very popular, and the 0% added sugar portfolio of the Pöttyös brand has also grown: with the brownie flavour Pöttyös Túró Rudi, and the light and airy milk biscuit flavour Tejsüti. The Milli product line will come out with several new innovations in the first half of 2024. Here as well the 0% added sugar portfolio will welcome a popular Hungarian pastry flavour: Milli’s sour cherry and poppy seed strudel flavour Krémtúró. Plus two new limited edition cottage cheese cream Krémtúró products will be launched in the first quarter: pineapple-coconut and caramel-pear.

Túró Rudi dipped in real chocolate

Anita Spitzmüller
brand manager
Sole-Mizo

“2023 was a challenging year for the chilled milk bar and cottage cheese based dessert market: the big shelf price increase had an impact on sales. The discount supermarket channel continues to play an important role in terms of sales, and we can see that private label products are gaining ground in the market”, recalls Anita Spitzmüller, brand manager of Sole-Mizo Zrt.

Some of the company’s most successful products in the túró rudi segment are the real chocolate variants. Within these the duo pack is especially popular.

Mizo Túró Rudi can be bought in milk chocolate and dark chocolate coating, and has also been available in limited edition flavours, e.g. the coconut real chocolate Mizo Túró Rudi last summer.

For the time being, pure products have been dominating, but flavours are also growing dynamically

Dairy-free indulgence

Plant-based alternatives to milk are also getting stronger in this category. For example Naszálytej Zrt. offers organic, lactose-free and soy-based tofu products in addition to the essential dairy products.

Katalin Péter
head of sales and marketing
Naszálytej

“Our lactose-free dairy products target lactose-sensitive consumers, while our tofu products concentrate on lactose- and milk protein-sensitive people and vegan consumers”, says Katalin Péter, head of sales and marketing at Naszálytej Zrt.

She told that their top innovation is a tofu-based vegan dessert range, launched under the Toffini brand. The development work was very fast and successful, and the lemon VEGAN dessert quickly became popular in the market, so soon the company launched three new flavours.

Sponsored illustration

New image and portfolio expansion

Fino-Food launched its Fino Vegajó vegan product range with 5 products 3 years ago.

Gábor Szommer
commercial
director
FINO-FOOD

The Vegan bar belongs to the Fino Vegajó product family, and it is a niche, delicious and easy-to-eat crunchy dipped dessert bar, with a light taste that will quickly find its way into the hearts of those following a plant-based diet, and those hungry for something new.

The company’s creamy desserts are available in apricot-sea buckthorn and blackberry-purple chokeberry flavour combinations, with a fruity taste and creamy texture. Prior to the launch of the new products, the Fino Vegajó brand underwent a major overhaul. //

Factors such as health and environmental awareness heavily drive innovations in this market, too

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Although the average price of chilled milk bars is still higher in absolute terms than that of the túró rudi segment, this difference has decreased from +54% to +26% over the last two years. The different trends in development have also been influenced by the closing of the price gap between the two segments. While the average price of milk bars has increased by 7% and 21% over the last two years, the average price of túró rudis has grown by 21% and 31%, respectively.

Who are the buyer? For both chilled snacks and chilled desserts, the penetration of the two product categories is higher among younger people and families. The role of traditional retailers is relatively small within the chilled snack category, with only 13% of the volume purchased by households coming from convenience stores in 2023. In contrast, the weight of the discounter channel is increasing step by step: back in 2021 45% of volume sales were realised in the channel, but this share rose to to 51% in 2023. //