Nielsen monitor: salty snacks and baked goods make gains

According to the figures from the Nielsen confectionery monitor, the sales volume through week 18 of 2019 also increased by 1.4% up to 596,712 tonnes (basis: food retailers + drug stores + impulse channels + gas station shops + department stores). With year-round products, confectionery suppliers achieved increased revenues of 3.3% up to € 4.410 bn with a sales quantity of 547,629 tonnes (+ 2.2%); seasonal article revenues however declined (- 3.1%; € 609 m), as did sales volume (- 6.9%; 49,083 t).
The strongest growth remained unchanged, with salty snacks achieving a revenue increase of 8.5% up to € 1.118 bn. Double-digit percentage growth was demonstrated by premium nuts (+ 16.8%), snack specialities (+ 16.1%), peanut flips (+ 13.1%), tortillas (+ 18.3%) and salted pretzels (+ 10.8%). Above-average performance also came from the baked goods category, with revenue growth of 5.4% up to € 565.7 m, with high growth rates coming from the segments other baked goods without chocolate (+ 13.9%), wafers without chocolate (+ 36.6%), seasonal baked goods (+ 12.4%) and shortbread (+ 26.0%).
The product group with the strongest revenues, chocolate products, increased earnings only slightly by 0.6%, up to € 2.440 bn. Revenue declines were suffered by Easter article chocolate products (- 3.1%), 100 g tablets (- 2.6%), pralines with alcohol (- 2.7%), seasonalised year-round articles (- 14.3%), other chocolate products (- 5.1%) and chocolate specialities (- 5.3%), but these losses were compensated by increased earnings for chocolate bars (+ 1.3%), praline-like products (+ 5.9%), large tablets (+ 1.5%), praline mixtures (+ 4.3%) and chocolate snack articles (+ 1.6%).
According to Nielsen’s calculations, sugar confectionery revenues remained below the levels of the same period for the previous year, down to € 895.1 m for a decrease of 0.9%. Fruit gum/marshmallow/liquorice increased by 2.0%, while revenues fell in the other two core segments of bonbons (- 2.0%) and chewing gum (- 1.5%).