Hot chocolate Is every one a winner?
New Kiwiana flavours are coming our way and old brand names in confectionary are retired to acknowledge a changing world, writes Melanie Carroll.
Kiwis loved Snifter Lumps, says Cadbury owner Mondelez, and the future looks like it has more lump combinations as the company tries more ways to tempt Kiwi taste buds.
Bitter rival Whittaker’s most recent mash-up was its Brewed Ginger Caramel block, as it continued to expand into Australia.
Mondelez head of marketing in New Zealand, Will Papesch, wouldn’t give much detail about what’s next, but said ‘‘it’s going to be a lot of what Kiwis have come to love’’.
‘‘So one example of that is the Snifter Lumps. What I can say is there will be more Kiwi-centric innovation in the future.’’
Although Snifter purists may have shuddered, Papesch said one in five households bought the product, and a third of those bought it more than once.
‘‘The ‘lumps’ momentum started with Perky Nana – we put it out in the middle of last year and that was really, really successful.
‘‘But every lump that we seem to launch is more successful than the last.’’
Another big hitter has been Caramilk – which is the company’s number one chocolate block – and there are plans for more of that.
‘‘If you look at the past as a bit of a signal for the future, Caramilk has been a massive success since it was relaunched last year,’’ he said.
‘‘Our recently launched Hokey Pokey caramilk has gone down very, very well – to date we’ve sold over 650,000 blocks.
‘‘Potentially there could be more Caramilk in the plan for next year given the success that we’ve had so far and feedback we’ve had from consumers.’’
The most successful recent product launches have been Caramilk, Snifter Lumps and the Pineapple Lump block last year, he says.
A Favourites Kiwi limited edition will be relaunched in a few weeks, with items such as Peppy Chews and chocolate fish. The company released a Kiwi edition Cadbury favourites in 2017, and has kept the mix of bars.
Papesch demurs when asked what the biggest flops have been recently – ‘‘I can’t point to any that spring to mind’’.
‘‘We work with our customers very, very closely in terms of how we successfully bring these products to market.’’
Among its releases will be the rebranded Pascall Eskimo lollies early next year.
After the death of George Floyd in the US and Black Lives Matter protests around the world, Mondelez joined other companies in rebranding products which had racially charged logos and marketing.
According to the Alaska Native Language Centre, the name ‘‘Eskimo’’ is commonly used in Alaska to refer to Inuit and Yupik people, but was considered derogatory in many other places.
Mondelez was securing the trademark rights for a new name and design which ‘‘reflects the history of exploration and affinity with the great outdoors’’, he said.
‘‘It could drive a better connection with New Zealanders, the new name, and hopefully the name that we come up with lasts for at least another 65 years.’’
Mondelez New Zealand managing director Cara Liebrock has been head of New Zealand operations for about 18 months, after 20 years with the company in Canada.
In that time, she says, the business has been listening to what Kiwis want.
‘‘We’ve really focused our plan a lot more against propositions that are going to be loved and just really back them.
‘‘There’s obviously various forums online and sometimes the odd media article comes up with what consumers would like to see come back, and all I can say is that we do take notice of those articles.’’ Covid had caused some disruption the first time around, with customer preferences changing overnight. Consumers bought more big blocks of chocolate, after supermarkets closed checkouts due to social distancing, and to share at home.
There was a surge in Easter sales, despite the holiday falling during the level 4 lockdown.
In terms of overall chocolate, Mondelez had just under a third of local market share, which it said made it the country’s largest chocolate company.
Liebrock said the first six months of the year had been turbulent, but it was optimistic about the result for the full year as it managed costs and also continued to invest in products.
It relocated its New Zealand call centre to Auckland last year from Melbourne, and brought merchandising in-house in May, nearly doubling its staff to 230 people.
But a return to local manufacturing is not on the cards.
The company was ‘‘not from New Zealand, but for New Zealand’’, Liebrock said.
‘‘Kiwis are very innovative and it has yielded an opportunity for us to be able to do experiments quickly here. New Zealand can be a great market for the globe to use as a great incubator for global innovation.’’
Caramilk was launched this year in Australia, and was given to the Mondelez global leadership team as an item to look at for the rest of the world.
New Zealand was also the only country to trial paper-based packaging, on the
Energy block.
‘‘Currently our packaging is recyclable, but it needs to be sent in to the depots that collect it,’’ she said.
‘‘We’re still evaluating the results of it, but the fact that we’re able to do that here was testament to the belief that they’ve got on just what we can do with the New Zealand market and getting learnings really quickly and then providing that insight to the rest of the globe.’’
Innovate or be the dusty brand left on the shelf, is the advice to chocolate makers from a marketing expert.
Whittaker’s has become known as the more innovative, and at the same time nostalgic, of the mainstream chocolatiers here, said University of Auckland business school senior marketing lecturer Dr
Mike Lee.
Whittaker’s also has the homeground advantage, which it snatched after Cadbury stumbled with the introduction of palm oil about a decade ago, followed by other missteps such as the reduction in bar size in 2015 and the closure of its Dunedin factory. The last item to roll off the production line at the factory was a Pineapple Lump.
Originally an English brand, Cadbury was bought out by United States food giant Kraft Foods in 2010 and is now run by its Mondelez subsidiary.
‘‘Whittaker’s is probably more well known for those collaborations and that Kiwiana flavour with their L&P chocolate that they did a while ago,’’ Lee said.
The tide which turned to Whittaker’s in the last decade hasn’t yet ebbed.
‘‘Cadbury, before they closed the factory down in Dunedin, probably had somewhat of a home advantage,’’ he said.
‘‘They’ve never been a Kiwi company, they’ve just happened to manufacture here for a portion of the time, but I could see how they would want to be seen that way and some of those flavour collaborations are obviously an attempt to appeal to the nostalgia flavour.’’
The smaller, boutique chocolate makers were also having an impact, although they were unlikely to be growing the country’s number of chocolateeaters.
‘‘It’s more likely stealing share from either Whittaker’s, for someone who’s looking for something even more niche, or it’s stealing it from Cadbury because people are wanting to support a different local brand or try something that’s a bit funkier.
‘‘I guess Cadbury from a brand positioning point of view, they’re very mainstream, they’re basically the McDonald’s of retail chocolate – they’re the family friendly, mainstream brand that is affordable yet premium.
‘‘Cadbury, being a mainstream brand, would want to have an above average product, but in as many different mainstream flavours as possible to try to appeal to families within the mainstream population.’’
Consumers are very vocal if they don’t like something, but it was harder to gauge what they do like, so testing won’t necessarily reveal whether something would work out in the real world.
‘‘They are competing with Whittaker’s that are coming out with a lot of innovative flavour combinations,’’ Lee said.
‘‘Snifters and Pineapple Lumps makes sense if you’re trying to win over a Kiwi market, so I guess you just have to go for it and let the sales data do the talking.’’
For Whittaker’s, as long as they weren’t taking away their staple flavours, it didn’t hurt to try different, very local combinations.
‘‘To do something like that sends the signal that you’re trying to remain relevant and novel and Kiwiana, so they probably have some reputation to gain from that, above and beyond whether the actual sales data is supporting that decision or not.’’
Not trying wasn’t an option, because otherwise you get left behind, he said.
‘‘If you keep doing the same thing over and over again there’s a risk that someone will come along and just do something that people think is very innovative, and you’re left being the old dusty brand on the shelf.’’
Innovation could also discourage competitors from even trying out some of those flavours.
For Kiwis hoping the end of confectionery mashups is in sight, they might have to like it or lump it.