Chewing Gum Consultant

Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Functional Gum in Mexico 08/04/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 3:15 PM
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More news about functional gum being published by http://www.confectionery news.com

Some days ago the focus was Holland and today is on Mexico.

In these two countries, like in many others, the growth of chewing gum is expected to be higher than the growth in other confectionery fields. and the main driver for that is the potential functionality that a chewing gum can contain. Of course the health claim is a key aspect in many markets and an issue that consumers value more and more. Then, of course, becomes a major issue for producers of chewing gums (and almost any other food product, I’d say).

The article also mentions that fruit flavours are the most popular in that country and gives some figures from Euromonitor about the market shares (with mention to one of the companies that I described some days ago: PISSA)

Again, good article from Oliver Nieburg of Confectionerynews.com!

Here is the link:

Functional gum in Mexico

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LTK TRADING – Turkey 20/03/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs,New product — Joan Mestres @ 1:19 PM
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More about Turkish chewing gum producers!

Today LKT Trading, part of the huge Latek Holding, which contains many companies in many different fields (really impressive). But the one which is of our interest is the chewing gum branch of this Holding, which includes 2 factories in Istanbul area.

It has about 20 years experience and 300 employees. The owner is Mr Zekeriye Mete. You can read more in www.latekholding.com or www.ltktrading.com

The company has two main brands: “Happy Gum”, which is the “chewing gum part” and consists of dragees and sticks presented in different packagings (plastic bottles, flip top boxes….), and “Gum Babol” which is the “bubble gum part” and has cut & wrap products in multipack presentation. The new launch for ISM was a HAPPY GUM sugar free presented in an envelop and with 6 different flavors.

According to Euromonitor, Sugarfree chewing gum accounts for 72% in volume of the total gum sold in Turkey in 2011. The trend, of course is for positive growth of this segment,a s products become more and more sophisticated.

I thank Mr Cem Erman for his time and explanations during the fair.

 

Wrigley and Mondelez Marketing 10/01/2013

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 7:12 PM
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Today… a note about marketing.

Two articles by Oliver Nieburg in Confectionerynews.com (see links below).

One article for each of the chewing gum giants.

The one dealing about Mondelez, informs about the intention to enhance the use of new technologies for their marketing, in particular mobile technologies by partnering with start-up companies in the field. For instance, Trident is linked to Rockimity and Stride to Waze. Interesting move!

Mondelez marketing

The second article is about Wrigley and their intention to reinvigorate the impulse channels in Germany. This is a more classical approach to marketing, which is also valid. Interesting to see it in a market (Germany) where Wrigley has a strong dominant position (over 70% market share according to Euromonitor). Other players (local brand Hitschler or the italian Perfetti) have a far much smaller share (below 5%). This market, due to its size and importance, is very carefully taken care of by Wrigley. There are line extensions being launched continuously (for the most classical brands like Orbit or Extra) and also new products being launched in a powerful way (such as “5” in 2009). Also, of course, being a well-developed mature market, the functionality vector is important, and Wrigley launched gums with green tea, aloe vera, vitamin C “Extra Professional + Vitamin C”. In terms of flavors, also according to Euromonitor, Spearmint is still number one, but new combinations appear more and more, like mojito, daiquiri or Pina colada flavour extensions for “Orbit”.

However, according to Mr Gabel (Sales director Wrigley Germany) their sales declined 3% last year, mainly driven by the decline in impulse channels, and that’s why they implement new measures now which include increasing sales force, new displays, increased TV marketing budget, etc.

Wrigley marketing

 

New products in China and Korea 20/11/2012

Filed under: New product — Joan Mestres @ 2:31 PM
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Wasabi KitKat (Nestlé) or Cheese Chocolate (Meiji-Japan) are only some of the amazing developments that we find in the Far East. You can see them following this link

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Formulation/Asian-innovation-Wasabi-Kit-Kats-and-cheese-chocolate © 2012 – William Reed Business Media SAS

 

But in our field of chewing gum two novelties are being described in the website above: A bubble gum launched by Lotte, in Korea and the appearance of “Stride”, by Mondelez in China.

Both can be considered oddities. The former because bubble gum is usually not the field where the innovation efforts focus, the later because the presence of Mondelez in the huge Chinese market is almost inexistent. Chinese market is (according to Euromonitor 2011) dominated by Wrigley (ca. 40% market share in value), followed at the distance by Orion, Lotte and Perfetti (all within the 3 to 5% bracket). Then various local players have much smaller shares. We will follow very closely how the launching of  the “Stride” brand (already well-known in other countries) develops and if this really represents the disembark of Mondelez in the Chinese gum market.

 

Argentina 18/10/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 4:14 PM
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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.

 

Do PIIGS chew gum? 12/09/2012

Filed under: Market & Fairs — Joan Mestres @ 8:49 PM
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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.