There is no festive season without chocolate

Lilla Horváth
brand manager
Nestlé Hungária

Lilla Horváth, Nestlé Hungária’s brand manager talked to our magazine about the general trend of consumers being open to novelties, looking for innovations in shops. At the same time they are also becoming more and more health-conscious.

Pál Molnár
sales manager
Szerencsi Bonbon

According to Pál Molnár, sales manager of Szerencsi Bonbon Kft., confectionery sales in the last 4 months of the year generally surpass the level of the first 8 months. This means that a high level of organisation is required from manufacturers, carriers and retailers alike, so that there are no empty shelves in shops. The peak period is the 2nd, 3rd and 4th weeks in December.

Christmas candy is a special product that is characteristic of the region. Consumption habits hardly change in this product category.

Marianna Rácsai
sales director
Lissé Édességgyár

As Marianna Rácsai, Lissé Édességgyár Kft.’s sales director puts it, Hungary is ‘jelly country’ as this is the most popular Christmas candy variety by far. There is a new phenomenon, though: sales of marzipan-filled Christmas candies have been growing for years.

Entering a new segment

Lilla Horváth told: since Nestlé entered the festive season market with its KITKAT brand, the company has already added gluten-free products to its product selection. In the hollow chocolate figure market Santa Claus figures are the stars, but the popularity of gift packs with plush figures and other toys is growing. This season new products can be expected from KITKAT and SMARTIES, plus Nestlé will enter a brand new segment with its BOCI brand!

While Easter is getting less important year by year, the year-end festive season remains extremely strong on the sweets market

Trendy and retro

Pál Molnár spoke to our magazine about Szerencsi deciding last year to only keep the premium jelly Christmas candy in the company’s portfolio. Consumer reaction was very strong: the company received so many e-mails and comments to bring back Szerencsi Retro jelly-filled Christmas candy that they will appear in shops again at the end of the year. Szerencsi will also roll out a cinnamon-plum milk chocolate in tablet format, and chocolate tablets in gift box version (dark and milk). Szerencsi Retro chocolate with gluten-free wafers will also hit the shops, in dark and milk variants.

The risk paid off

Lissé took a risk and won at the end of last year: because of the pandemic-induced restrictions, several retailers didn’t ensure that they would actually purchase the quantity of Christmas candy they had ordered earlier – or they asked for a return guarantee. In spite of these hardships Lissé’s sales soared by 35 percent in 2020 if compared with 2019.

Marianna Rácsai revealed to Trade magazin that their main innovation direction is free-from products. These products appear on store shelves both under the Lissé brand name and as private label products. In the autumn of 2020 the company started selling its products online with great success.

Consumers are very much open-minded towards novelties, they look for innovations, new tastes and products of ever higher-quality

They are preparing with strong marketing activity

Máté Balogh
sales director
Lindt & Sprüngli (CEE)
s. r. o. Magyarországi Fióktelep

2020 brought a successful Christmas season for Lindt.

Máté Balogh, sales director of Lindt & Sprüngli (CEE) s.r.o. in Hungary reported to us: their sales grew by double-digit numbers in the chocolate figure and Advent calendar segments, while in the praline category the sale revenue skyrocketed by nearly triple-digit numbers. The main sales channel was hypermarkets, but the four Lindt shops also performed well. In September 2020 they launched the Lindt Webshop, which proved to be very popular with consumers. At the end of 2021 Lindt will implement a never-before-seen marketing campaign, which will involve a Lindor launch.

Rewarded flavour, brave new innovations

Sándor Sánta
managing director
Chocco Garden

This year Chocco Garden will revamp the packaging of its Christmas candy boxes, keeping the characteristic turquoise colour.

Sándor Sánta, Chocco Garden Kft.’s managing director shared the news that in distribution they will concentrate on jelly-filled Christmas candies – these won the Christmas Candy of the Year prize in 3 consecutive years in their category. Following in the footsteps of the special banana mousse Christmas candy, a strawberry mousse variant will come out this year. In the premium category salted caramel and toffee Christmas candies will be put on the market. A sugar-free chocolate Santa Claus is going to be the main innovation in the hollow figure segment. //