Are you making the most of your chilled yoghurts and potted desserts range?

In this feature, RN joins Danone’s Rebecca Lovelady as she helps two retailers boost sales in this staple category.

The chilled yoghurts and potted desserts category is worth £358m in convenience and is
set to grow – making it a vital one to get right. To show retailers how to make the most of
the opportunity, Danone category executive Rebecca Lovelady visited two London symbol stores to give them advice on their core range offering and merchandising flow.

The Opportunity

• 72% of yoghurt purchases are preplanned – shoppers will go elsewhere if they can’t find preferred brands.
• 1/3 of shoppers struggle to find healthy products in convenience stores.

RETAILER
Camran Rahi
Nisa, Islington

“The challenge we face in this category is trying to encourage our shoppers to spend more. There is a Tesco Express close by who are very competitive on yoghurt prices and often run deals on multi-packs.

“To compete with them, I brought in more multipacks two months ago, and these are going alright. Big pots, especially Onken, also do well. At the moment, I’m changing my range to match promotions every week. I need advice from Danone on getting a range that I can keep all year round."

Expert Advice
Rebecca Lovelady
Category executive,
Danone

“Camran’s range is already good, covering most of the key segments in the category. Yet by buying in on promo he isn’t providing a consistent range, so customers may go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for, which can increase wastage.

“We’ll help Camran to find a consistent core range and recommend a logical merchandising flow from morning to evening occasions, to make it easier for consumers to shop the fixture.”

Action Plan

1. Consistency: Stick to the same range of top-selling lines every week, so shoppers know what they will find week in week out.
2. Merchandising: Follow Danone’s recommended flow from breakfast active health drinks and big pots, to everyday health, diet and kids yoghurts ending with tasty treats.
3. Trends: Bring new customers into the category by offering ‘on trend’ health yoghurts such as natural, protein, dairy or sugar free options.

RETAILER
Perry Sanu
Costcutter,
East London

“I haven’t had much advice on the yoghurts category in the past, so I’ve just been trying to manage the fixture and grow sales by myself. At the moment, they’re not a big performer in my store, but that might be because I’m not sure what the best range would be for us. I’d like to find out what the bestsellers are and how to display them.

“I’m hoping this advice will give me a best-in-class range, and increase my sales.”

Rebecca Lovelady says

“Perry has a great store, with a good range of chilled foods. But even though he has a fairly large trading area, his yoghurt range is quite small and is missing some of the key segments. This means he could be losing out on sales.

"Also, Perry’s yoghurts and desserts are currently spread out across two chillers rather than in one fixture, which could confuse shoppers; making it harder to find what they're looking for."

Action Plan

1. Range: Cover all the key segments in the category by introducing active health drinks, healthy and kids yoghurts and a range of desserts.
2. Formats: Stock a variety of pack sizes, formats and flavours to cater for all shopping missions and preferences.
3. Siting: Display all yoghurts in one main fixture, alongside milk and other dairy products to drive footfall to the shelf.

Danone Tips For Your Store

1. Ensure you have a core range that is consistently available covering the key segments and top sellers.
2. Maximise your chilled space by creating segments and placing similar products together such as: big pots, health, diet, luxury treats, kids.
3. Ensure your pricing and promotions are clear and consider including yoghurt in front of store meal deals to drive additional purchases.

What happens next?

Camran and Perry will now follow Rebecca’s advice for six weeks. RN will look at sales data from both stores to see how the changes help boost their sales. To find out how they got on, look out for RN on Sept 1.

Get involved: To see how you can grow your soft drinks sales call 0207 689 0600 – option 3 or tweet @betterretailing