Cereal bars, mueslis and breakfast cereals

Levente Németh, breakfast cereal brand manager of Nestlé Hungária Kft.:

Cereal bars kept their positions

Unlike mueslis and breakfast cereals, cereal bar sales didn’t suffer a loss last year. In part because these products are cheaper, and typically they are purchased impulsively, which is less influenced by rising prices. It also helps this segment that compared with chocolate bars and chilled dairy snacks, they are still available at lower prices. Among cereal bars the inflation level was more than 50%. Private label products didn’t push forward in this segment, as branded products could increase their market share, thanks to new innovations.

Exciting flavours on the horizon

Just recently Nestlé has rolled out a new innovation: a crispy brownie variant of Chocapic breakfast cereal. With another big Nestlé brand, the company is preparing with a major product launch for the start of the school year. Advertising campaigns concentrate on the main ingredients of products, whole cereals, thanks to which high fibre content is guaranteed. Digital media is more and more important in Nestlé’s communication, so the products can now be found on all big social media platforms.

Healthier recipes

Szilvia Hajduvári, head of marketing at Cerbona Élelmiszergyártó Zrt., cited NIQ (formerly Nielsen IQ) data when she told our magazine that the cereal market grew by 23% in value last year, and volume sales only dropped a little.

“I wouldn’t say shoppers are downtiering, but discounters have been gaining ground for years. It is needless to say that this has entailed a growth for private labels, especially in the muesli, oatmeal and breakfast cereal categories”

– added Cerbona’s head of marketing. The company’s biggest product launch has been the repositioning of the updated muesli and Cerbona breakfast cereal ranges. Cerbona reduced the sugar content of mueslis, and they changed the recipe of breakfast cereals, plus added two new products to the portfolio.

Based on oatmeal

Tamás Bozó, key account manager of GOF Hungary Kft.:

“As a new player in the market, what we see is that sales are dropping in our category too, in the gluten-free segment. Because of the rising prices shoppers purchase less of these, while those who used to buy gluten-free products out of health consciousness are returning to cheaper alternative foods”.

The company makes oatmeal products and currently they are working on the launch of a new innovation: a 3-product gluten-free granola range, which will appear on store shelves in mid-June. Already this year they will come out with new breakfast cereals too.

Premium, but not luxury

The buyers of Viblance products are more brand loyal and less price-sensitive than the average consumer. This is the reason why the company’s volume sales didn’t decrease.

Zsolt Babocsai, co-founder of Viblance:

“It must be added, though, that at a time when the food inflation was over 40%, we only increased prices by 10%”.

Last year the company’s big success story was the granola bar, which performed above expectations. In the Christmas period granola bonbon was also a big hit, in the category of no added sugar Christmas candy. In the first quarter of the year Viblance put granola and porridge products with added protein on the market. //