Magazine: More than just flour and eggs

Norbert Káhn
director of commerce
Gyermelyi

Pasta is popular because it is simple and many types of dish can be made from it. Recently the price of eggs and flour have increased, plus labour and logistics costs have grown as well, which lead to a 6-10 percent increase in product prices. Despite this fact pasta sales were up. Norbert Káhn, director of commerce at market leader Gyermelyi Zrt. told our magazine that they had realised record sales last year. In 2018 they started production in a new factory, and this step doubled the company’s production capacity.

Brigitta Soós
Soós Tészta

Four-egg pastas continue to dominate the market, while among smaller segments durum pasta sales are developing well. The proportion of sales in promotion is high, and Brigitta Soós from Soós Tészta Kft. thinks the main reason behind this is that in promotional periods product access is more guaranteed than at other times.

Krisztina Kovácsné Nagy
advertising- and
marketing manager
Famíliatészta

Krisztina Kovácsné Nagy, advertising and marketing manager of Famíliatészta Kft. informed that pasta sales also increase a little before Easter and Christmas. Mr Káhn revealed that the company’s experience is that the market share of private label pastas is decreasing.

Róbert Rácz
sales and
marketing director
Izsáki Házitészta

Róbert Rácz, sales and marketing director of Izsáki Házitészta Kft. told Trade magazin that the company had reacted to consumption changes in the soup pasta segment by coming out with new packaging sizes: in addition to the 500g and 200g products, now 5x100g, 2x250g and 1x250g variants are also available.

Gábor Vaszkó
managing director
CIVITA Food

Gábor Vaszkó, managing director of CIVITA Food Kft. spoke to us about the wide range of gluten-free pastas available to shoppers, mainly in organic and healthy food shops and online. Retail chains still haven’t made a breakthrough in this segment, neither in terms of price nor in their product selections.

Gyermelyi intends to strengthen the Gyermelyi umbrella brand – pasta, flour and egg products belong here. Another important goal of the company is to make the target group younger. The company’s durum product range Vita Pasta is now increasingly popular in the Hungarian market too. In the second half of the year a practical new packaging solution will be introduced, which will be followed with category expansion later.

Soós Tészta is the strongest in the 8-egg soup pasta category. Ms Soós informed us that they don’t plan to launch new products this year, but they will continue to optimise product packaging, e.g. the bag size of certain Boglyas products will change, so that on-shelf displaying will be more optimal. The company wants to reach even more consumer with in-store tasting sessions than before.

Izsáki Házitészta Kft.’s main profile is making traditional products with high egg content. The fact that they must employ many people because of the pasta varieties that they make – the quantity of fresh eggs used daily – and the high quality product ingredients used don’t make it possible for them to manufacture products that compete with their price. Izsáki egg barley and Izsáki hot pinched noodles are traditional products that satisfy modern needs.

Famíliatészta Kft. put two new product ranges on the market in May: Level up Sports Pasta has been tailored to contribute to the diets of people living a healthy and active life. The product is characterised by high protein and fibre content, while its carbohydrate content has been reduced by 50 percent. Pastas in the company’s Ristorante Italiano range can be prepared in just 10 minutes, they are E-number free, containing only natural ingredients.

Innovation work by gluten-free pasta maker CIVITA Food concentrates on high fibre content at the moment. Their gluten-free pastas are free from additives and their fibre content is above 10g/100g. Packaging-wise they are going in the direction of smaller products: they came out with a 200g product for retailers and a 70g pasta for the HoReCa channel. //