I was recently in Argentina, so I take this excuse to comment a bit on the gum market of this country.
It is a clear duopoly with Kraft/Cadbury holding 54% market share in value and the local player Arcor 42%. Not much room left for the others! Each of them have their very strong brands (Beldent and TopLine respectively) well established in the market since many years. Being sugar free brands, these are gaining market share each year to other sugared brands like Bubaloo or Bazooka (both Cadbury), which decrease, following the general world-wide trend. We can find another common trend also in Argentina: Increase of chewing gum and decrease of bubble gum, with functional gum being a strong driver for the increase.
While bubble gum accounts for 12400 T and only 714 Million Peso value, chewing gum represents 7400 T but 1300 Million Peso value!
Two specificities of this market are the high inflation rate (around 25%) and the increased legislation to protect the local economy by making imports more and more difficult. Both issues affect the chewing gum market. The perspectives are positive and some growth (2%) is expected.
Argentina 18/10/2012
Nostalgia 01/10/2012
Now that we have to name the second player in our field “Mondelez” instead of Kraft, there many names that come to my mind which are no longer in use.
The same company, Kraft, took over some years ago Cadbury, which in turn had purchased Adams from Pfizer. Adams, a pioneer in our industry, was belonging to Warner Lambert. Cadbury also absorbed the Danish Dandy, the Argentinian Stani, the Egyptian BimBim and many others.
The other big player, Wrigley, is now within the Mars Inc. group, but it had absorbed some companies in the past, like Joyco (previously named General de Confiteria).
If we llok at the suppliers, we can also find names that are not there anymore. In the field of flavours I remember Bush Boake Allen (BBA), now in IFF; or Quest and Tastemaker now in Givaudan. In terms of machinery we can remember that names of Togum, Comeck or WLS. Many of their machines are still in factories around the world. Or even Nagema, from East Germany, for packaging.
If you also remember those names, it means that you have been around for quite a while as well….
Do PIIGS chew gum? 12/09/2012
Today I had the curiosity to check the Euromonitor figures for these European countries that suffer the current crisis in its most severe form. I’d like to share some of them with you (from smallest size market to largest). The data are from 2011.
PORTUGAL: 1318 Tons. Up 1% in value from 2010 but expected to stay at 0% growth until 2016 (the maximum range of Euromonitor’s study). The main brand is Trident and the market is largely dominated by Cadbury (63%), followed at distance by Wrigley (13%) and the local producer Lusiteca (4%).
IRELAND: 2130 T. Up 2% both in value and volume from 2010. Expected growth of 1% per year until 2016. The top brand is Extra and in this case the market is clearly dominated by Wrigley (86%), with some minor shares for Cadbury (3%), Zed Candy (1%), Tesco (0,6%), Adams (0,5%) and Topps (0,1%). A special note about the products from Zed Candy, which are very original and shocking.
GREECE: 3025 T. Down 9% in volume from 2010 and a decrease of 3% is expected in the studied period. Here the main brand is Trident and the market leader Cadbury with 59%. Then we find Wrigley (20%), Perfetti (13%), Elma SA (5,4%) and Sarsantis with 0,9%. This is clearly the country where we find the worse results, and it is as well where the economic situation seems to be the worse.
SPAIN: 13038 Ton in 2011 with 2% decrease in volume and value. However the expectations are more positive with a growth of 2%. Number one brand is Trident and here there is a tight fight for the largest market share, being Cadbury (43%) and Wrigley (42%). Then we find Perfetti (4,2%) and local producers such as Fleer (2,2%) and Damel (0,1%).
ITALY: with 18322 T is the largest market and one traditionally dominated by the local multinational Perffetti (94% market share!). Not much room left for the others, with only Wrigley accounting for a 2,3%. Number one brand is, of course, a Perfetti one: Vivident. The market has grown 2% in volume since 2010 and a small 1% growth is expected from now on.
We do not find many similarities, as each country has its own players, trends and dynamics. The only common trend that I found is also found in many other developed markets, which is the increase of sugarfree and functional products, that are keeping the market alive, in opposition to bubble gum and sugared gum which decreases more and more its presence. We can also look at the trend of smaller packages (which I discussed in a previous posting) and also some differences noticed at the point of sale, regarding the consideration of gum as impulse product.
Chewing Gum and Chewy Candy Combination 22/08/2012
The last trend launched into the market in terms of chewing gum format or presentation has been a co-extruded tab consisting on 3 layers of product. Kraft-Cadbury was the first to come with this innovation and named it “Trident Layers”. This is a sort of “sandwich” gum where the top and bottom layers are gum, and the middle layer is chewy candy with a different flavor. Really interesting mix! Then, the same company has launched the same concept under other brands that they own. For instance “Stride” in Japan and “Beldent” in Argentina. Other companies launched a similar product: Perfetti with the well-known “Mentos” brand and also “Vivident”. In this case, this company dared to go for three completely different layers, as you can see in the photo attached, each one with a different color and/or flavour. Recently Lotte, in Japan, joined the trend and launched “Zeus” gum. In this case they used a completely new brand and did not use any existing one (“BlackBlack”, “Xylitol”, “Green Gum”, etc…). “Zeus” gum has a really strong taste (the image on the packaging refers to a storm and lightning), whicb is quite unusual for the Japanese market, which usually prefers mild flavors. Let’s see how it performs in the market.
We will probably see other products in the market that use this innovative concept of mixing gum and chewy candy. And of course, this opens the door to other combinations…
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New Product, more! 13/08/2012
Some days ago I was mentioning an interesting product from Wrigley in Australia. Today it is Cadbury’s turn, and they have a new product in the US named “ID“. This gum, targeted to teenagers has two main characteristics: The first is a printed surface with different designs (there are some products in the market with this feature but none of them has been launched recently). The second interesting characteristic is a packaging with a magnet in the sleeve so it can be properly closed.
I attach below a link where you can read more about this product:
http://www.just-food.com/news/kraft-looks-to-boost-gum-sales-with-new-brand_id119104.aspx
and this one that discusses about this product and some other novelties in the chewing gum market:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2012-05-04/wacky-chewing-gum/54818846/1
Kraft new name 22/03/2012
Kraft foods has announced that the new name for its Global Snacks Company will be MONDELEZ. The North American grocery business will keep the Kraft name.
We will be seeing this name on the shelves around the world. It sounds quite Spanish to me (this termination in “-ez” is like Spanish names Gomez, Martinez, Rodriguez, Sanchez…) but maybe is just a personal bias. I don’t know how it sounds to American (or other countries) ears. It seems that this name combines the words “Monde” (= world) and “Delez” (= delicious). So we have a “Delicious world” !!
Chewing Gum Consultant 