Battling for space in the freezers

Tünde Matyasovszky, Bonafarm Zrt.’s senior brand manager (Valdor): “Convenience product sales soared during the pandemic, as people started stockpiling and cooking at home. After the Covid period raw material and energy prices started growing, and this had an influence on the frozen food category. Manufacturers were forced to increase prices and this changed consumption habits, due to which the category’s development came to a halt.”

Extending the assortments of convenience products and those fitting into special diets remains a key to the strengthening of market positions

What will happen to the freezers?

What makes the situation even worse for frozen foods is that growing electricity bills compel shop owners to switch off some of their freezers. Ms Matyasovszky explained that this will mean smaller physical space for the products of different manufacturers in stores, and obviously those products will disappear from the freezers that don’t sell well.

Beáta Bukovenszki
head of domestic
sales
Gallicoop

Beáta Bukovenszki, head of domestic sales at Gallicoop Zrt. talked to us about people spending less time in the kitchen again, now that COVID is over. This trend is generating bigger demand for frozen foods once again, as they can be prepared quickly. “My view is that store managers will turn off soft and alcoholic drink refrigerators first, then the ice cream freezers will follow, as these categories are less important than for instance meat” – she explained.

Barbara Kovács, Maresi Foodbroker Kft.’s junior brand manager: “Switching off refrigerators and freezers can entail the delisting of certain products, but if this will be done based on analysing the demand for, volume sales and the profitability of products, the result will be basically a portfolio a rationalisation.”

Wind of change

Barbara Kovács
junior brand manager
Maresi Foodbroker

Many shoppers are downtiering, buying cheaper products than before, either lower-priced frozen foods or private labels. This trend can be really good news for discounters.

Barbara Kovács told that they don’t want to compete with private labels; instead they do in-out promotions with discounter partners. She added that the wind of change had reached the frozen food market already earlier, so increasing the selection of convenience and special diet products is essential in strengthening market positions. As for product size, Maresi Foodbroker Kft. sees growing demand for bigger formats.

Increased production efficiency results in affordable products

In the current situation Gallicoop focuses on investing in increasing production efficiency. Beáta Bukovinszki told that their innovation work has reacted to the shoppers becoming more and more price-sensitive, manufacturing affordable Gallicoop/Gallio products. Their latest innovation is Gallio frozen turkey meat balls in plain and breaded variants, with green peppercorn and Kyiv sauce filling. They are characterised by high meat content, pleasant spicing and easy preparation, by this saving energy for consumers.

Preservation and renewal

Tünde Matyasovszky believes that right now price promotions work better than costly and timely innovation projects. However, this doesn’t mean that Hungerit has stopped innovating. For instance this year brings a complete renewal for the image of the Valdor brand. Bonafarm Zrt. gave Valdor a modern new logo, and on the packaging of breaded products a new label calls attention to product benefits, e.g. they can be prepared without oil. The new packaging gradually replaced the old one in October 2022. Soon fresh meat products will also bear the new logo. It will take about six months to complete the change.

Innovation based on scientific results

Ádám Nagy
managing director
Nádudvari Élelmiszer