Nielsen monitor: only salty snacks rise above last year‘s levels

According to the figures from the Nielsen confectionery monitor, sales volume by week 35 of 2018 declined by 2.4% down to 1.085 m tonnes (basis: food retailers + drug stores + impulse channels + gas station shops + department stores). Year-round products suffered declines in revenues (- 1.2%) and sales volume (- 2.8%), while seasonal articles increased in value (+ 2.4%) and quantity (+ 8.0%).

As before, salty snacks remained the only category that experienced revenue growth, with € 2.003 bn representing an increase of 4.2%. Premium nuts (+ 4.4%), snack specialities (+ 7.4%) and crackers (+ 38.9%) were among the category‘s winners. Potato crisps (- 0.9%) on the other hand failed to match the previous year‘s levels. The revenues with chocolate products fell by 1.5% down to € 3.986 bn. Chocolate bars (+ 3.3%) were the only good news in this product group. Heavy losses were suffered by providers of praline-like products (- 5.5%), 100 g tablets (- 5.2%), large tablets (- 3.7%) and praline mixes (- 4.8%).

Sugar confectionery sales fell by 3.9% down to € 1.734 bn. This negative development was particularly evident in the sub-segments of fruit & wine gums (- 6.6%), liquorice (- 6.2%) and fruit bonbons (- 11.8%). Nielsen additionally calculated a revenue decrease of 3.2% down to € 1.053 bn for the baked goods category, with cookies (- 10.7%) falling by a double-digit percentage, along with chocolate shortbread biscuits (- 13.4%) and bagged pastry and wafer mixes (- 14.7%).

Confectionery revenue development in the sales channels: declines were registered by large consumer markets (- 0.6%), small and large supermarkets (- 6.9% and - 1.7%, respectively), the discounters Aldi/Lidl/Norma (- 2.4%), cooperating discounters (- 0.6%), impulse channels + gas station shops (- 7.6%) and department stores (- 7.9%). In contrast, small consumer markets (+ 2.0%) and drug stores (+ 1.3%) demonstrated positive performance.