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How can Craft Beer brands thrive in a stagnant category?
How can Craft Beer brands thrive in a stagnant category?
The UK Craft beer category is treading water with a slim 1.9% volume growth YOY (NIQ EPOS data to 22nd Feb 2025) and only accounting for 4.7% of the total beer market.
Added to that the residual effects of lockdown on the On Trade, and the cost-of-living crisis pushing prices up and squeezing margins, it’s no wonder that 100 craft beer breweries stopped trading last year.
With the major retailers rationalising their ranges and giving more shelf space to World Beers and No/Low, is there any good news for craft beer brands?
3 tips for small & medium sized Food & Drink suppliers when using market data to pitch to retail buyers
This week at the NEC in Birmingham, Small to Medium Food & Drink suppliers will be showcasing their wares with the aim of creating new opportunities and capturing the presence of trade buyers who are present. From the Food & Drink Expo to the Farm Shop & Deli show, it’s going to be the biggest yet since the pandemic.
What do these smaller suppliers have in common when it comes to trying to break into major retailers (if that’s what they aim to do)?
Many know they need market data but don’t have the resource or expertise to know how to use it. Others will have got by without it up to now.
One thing is for sure though. Retailers expect suppliers to have a good knowledge of the category they are entering, or looking to increase their presence in. To a retail buyer, without market data, it’s just another supplier with their own opinion.
EPOS and Panel data – the combination that Retail Buyers want to see
There are many things in life that go well together. Fish & Chips, Ant & Dec, Cheese & Onion!
For an FMCG supplier, whether you’re selling branded or Private Label products, the first combination that matters is Distribution & rate of Sale. That is, getting into more stores (Distribution) combined with improving your performance per store (Rate of sale). If you can do both, you’re onto a winner.
However, there’s a different combination that matters when you’re pitching to Retail Buyers - EPOS and Panel market data.
The Shopping Mission - does up-to-date data shape your NPD strategy?
What drives your NPD? Is it coming up with new flavours and variations in the kitchen, is it following trends in your category?
Do you come up with new product ideas, and then figure out how best to sell them to shoppers?
Or, do you think about the Shopping Mission and what your brand could do for the consumer, before coming up with new ideas?
Can your NPD drive growth in Foodservice?
On our recent webinar, Circana’s Gareth Nash presented market data that outlined the ongoing upturn in food service, as it continues to recover from lockdown.
Foodservice continues to represent an opportunity for food & drink manufacturers clever enough to capitalise on the upturn since COVID. And by clever enough we mean using the right blend of market data and consumer insight to get the biggest ROI on new product development in this area.
Taylors - same great crisps, different packet.
When a successful, well-known and trusted brand takes the bold move to both rename the business and redesign its packaging, they’re clearly taking a commercial risk.
Taylors Snacks, formerly known as Mackie’s of Taypack, or Mackie’s Crisps to most people, have done exactly that.
How the cost-of-living crisis is impacting on Malt Whisky
Big questions and decisions ahead for malt whisky producers – how well do they really know their customers? Are they still targeting the right shoppers?
How well do you know your category shopper?
Speak to most retail buyers in 2023 and there’s one common theme. Value – identifying ways to offer shoppers value for money during the cost-of-living crisis.
So what does this mean for branded products this year?
Protecting your core range in 2023
Our first TRKR webinar of the year was on the topic of ‘Protecting your core range in 2023’.
With guest speakers from IRI and Peperami, there were several key takeouts for food & drink suppliers to take note of.
What Retail Buyers Want - Part 4
Each quarter TRKR talk to retail category buyers to find out what’s currently important to them and, more specifically, what they expect from food & drink manufacturers when they pitch to them…
PART IV) THINK BEYOND THE INITIAL LISTING
Demonstrate how you’ll support the product listing ongoing
Arrive with a plan
Start small and scale up
What Retail Buyers Want - Part 3
Each quarter TRKR talk to retail category buyers to find out what’s currently important to them and, more specifically, what they expect from food & drink manufacturers when they pitch to them…
Sobering thoughts….can Gin emerge from its current dip?
The Off-trade Gin category saw some sobering data in Q4…
Nielsen showed an 8.7% drop in value (-£105m) for the 52 weeks to w/e 20th Nov 2021.
Kantar’s 52 weeks to Sept 2021 data also showed UK gin growth lagging well behind other categories (£24m vs Rum £58m, Vodka £116m & Whisky £154m).
For context, this was on the back of 22% growth for the previous year, as many drinkers increased their Gin consumption at home during lockdown.
What Retail Buyers Want - Part 2
Each quarter TRKR talk to retail category buyers to find out what’s currently important to them and, more specifically, what they expect from food & drink manufacturers when they pitch to them…
What Retail Buyers Want - Part 1
Each quarter TRKR talk to retail category buyers to find out what’s currently important to them and, more specifically, what they expect from food & drink manufacturers when they pitch to them…
HFSS….God, it even sounds dull. Definitely one to stick in the “to do” folder.
HFSS – High Fat, Salt and Sugar. Cakes to cereal, pizza to prepared meals.
We don’t expect consumers to have much awareness of this, not individually at least. On a macro level however, there will hopefully be a positive impact on the health of the nation, especially for children, simply by reducing the promotional opportunity for unhealthy food and drink products.
But for food and drink manufacturers the impact could be a lot bigger, starting now.
Launching a Premium Hot Smoked Seafood range in M&S
Last month (April 2022) Marks & Spencer’s launched a new range of premium hot smoked salmon, mackerel and prawns, within their Collections range.
The launch was the culmination of a new approach to NPD taken by supplier Associated Seafoods (A.S.) based in Buckie on the Moray Firth coast in the North of Scotland.