Merchandising bigger packs for top-up shoppers

There is no doubt the current situation brings unprecedented challenges for everyone. As one of the UK’s biggest food manufacturers, working across multiple categories, we are concentrating on playing our part in helping to maintain supply.

The convenience channel has seen continued strong growth as the nation comes to grips with social distancing and life in lockdown. We have seen that the frequency of shopping trips has dropped, a positive sign that the UK population is following government guidelines and staying at home.

Although frequency has inevitably dropped, shoppers have settled into a new rhythm which offers larger basket sizes to retailers meeting new needs. We are seeing more families enter the channel through the top up mission, which presents retailers with an exciting opportunity to adapt the range in store into new areas.

We shared early insight in our first article last month about the growth potential for larger pack formats. Within the savoury snacking category, we are seeing unprecedented growth of multipacks at +63% (versus pre-Covid) as consumers look to cater for a series of lunchtime and snacking occasions. Our best-selling multipacks that we recommend you stock are Walkers Variety 6pk & Quavers 6pk.

Awake to breakfast changes

Moving into juice, more households are taking on a new morning ritual and enjoying breakfast at home. Chilled juice has always played a key role during this occasion and we are seeing a resurgence of this in the market with take home juice growing at +52%, particularly as consumers are taking extra care of their health and consumption choices. The recommended daily serving of 150ml of juice offers consumer 1 of their 5 a day.

We encourage stores to stock our best-selling take home price-marked-packs to cater for the changing demand: Tropicana Smooth 850ml and Tropicana Original 850ml. Why not look to repurpose space in your chiller to stock these larger lines more prominently for customers?

Local heroes

Independent and symbol store owners and their staff are the heroes of their local community and play such a crucial role during this ongoing situation, and everyone’s time of need. We are here to support and listen to your needs, offering snacking products that can offer consumers a moment of relief during this stressful time.

Keeping insight at the heart of everything we do, to support local stores we are embarking on a deep insights project to understand the changing dynamics across categories, channels, shoppers and consumers. We will continue to support independent retailers by making sure our advice is simple and connected to the consumer.

Find out more on our coronavirus information hub for retailers