Premier Foods Investing in Spread Brands

Premier Foods is building on Hartley's brand growth with the launch of three new flavours in the Hartley's Best range: Best Rhubarb Jam, Best Mango Jam and Best Sweet Orange Jam.

13/01/09 Premier Foods is investing in its leading sweet spread brands to drive category growth and has a raft of new product development across its core brand portfolio.

The company, whose spread brands include the market-leading Hartley's jam brand, Golden Shred, Frank Cooper's premium marmalade, Gale's honey and Sun-Pat peanut butter, claims there is an opportunity to grow the £300m category by 10%.

New product development

Jam is the key sector within spreads, accounting for 30% of sales. Premier Foods' brand, Hartley's, is the market leader in jam with a 19% value share, and is growing by 26% year-on-year.

Simple pleasures

Premier Foods is building on Hartley's brand growth with the launch of three new flavours in the Hartley's Best range: Best Rhubarb Jam, Best Mango Jam and Best Sweet Orange Jam. The new variants increase consumer choice and add interest and excitement to the category. "The new Hartley's Best variants bring colour, innovation and interest to the brand and fixture," says David Atkinson, category business unit general manager, spreads, at Premier Foods.

Hartley's Best Sweet Orange Jam taps into the popularity of orange as a flavour, especially among young people. Unlike marmalade, which can be perceived as bitter and is a more acquired taste with older consumers, Sweet Orange Jam is made with sweet Valencia oranges and is an alternative that younger people will like. It is also available in a contemporary Smooth Squeezy format.

Helping shoppers shop

Premier Foods is promoting shelf standout of the expanded Hartley's range with new shelf-ready packaging that clearly indicates product flavours using distinctive colours.

The new shelf ready packaging enables shoppers to locate their favoured product quickly and easily, with the added benefit of brightening up the fixture. The shelf-ready packaging will also help store staff to identify products easily and restock the shelves with greater ease.

Unique jam and marmalade products made with versatile honey not sugar

Honey Jam & Marmalade taps into the growing honey market and the popularity of honey as a wholesome and contemporary food. Premier Foods says the products will appeal to the 75% of honey buyers who also buy jam as well as health conscious consumers who use honey as a natural sweetener and prefer to purchase products low in sugar.

These products are currently unique in the world as they are traditional jams and marmalades made with honey rather than processed sugar. The products will be available under the Hartley's brand in two flavours: Strawberry & Honey Jam, Raspberry & Honey Jam. A similar product will also be available under the Robertson's Golden Shred brand, which is launching two new marmalade flavours: Orange & Honey and Lemon & Honey.

Hartleys High Fruit

The long term decline of the reduced sugar jam segment has shown consumers are not willing to sacrifice taste for a lower sugar product. By focusing on the fruit content we hope the Hartley's High Fruit range will capture consumer's desire for more fruit and less sugar in their jams, but still deliver a great tasting product. "Delivering a high fruit product that still tastes great and spreads like a regular jam has been a challenge and we are rightly proud to be delivering this product," says David Atkinson. Premier Foods is launching Hartley's High Fruit jams with 80g of fruit per 100g of product in two flavours: Strawberry and Raspberry.

Premium provenance

Premier Foods' Robertson's Golden Shred brand is the market leader in marmalade with a 23% value share and it is growing by 7% year-on-year. This autumn Premier Foods is launching a single estate marmalade range under the Robertson's Golden Shred brand.

Produced in partnership with the Don Ramon Bordas Estate who have grown oranges in the Seville area of Spain for many years. The new range combines a higher fruit content than in the original Golden Shred with the added authenticity and provenance of an identified local supplier.

"Robertson's Golden Shred is the number one brand and rightly seen as the ‘worlds best marmalade'" says David Atkinson. "This offers an opportunity to try something new with a brand they trust."

The premium range comprises four variants: Seville Orange, Verna & Primafiora Lemon, Shredless Seville Orange and Key Lime and features a classic label.

Premium indulgence

Frank Cooper's is Premier Foods' premium marmalade brand with a 10% market share and is the fastest growing brand with sales up by 20% year-on-year. This autumn Premier Foods is launching Frank Cooper's Shredless Oxford Marmalade to fill the gap for a premium shredless offering and to appeal to consumers for whom peel is a barrier to purchase. "The marmalade market is in growth and needs premium innovation to build on this. Frank Cooper's is ideally placed to support this as the leading premium marmalade brand."

Robertson's

Premier Foods has made the proactive decision to focus on developing Robertson's marmalade offering rather than pursuing the brands declining jam portfolio.

Robertson's Golden Shred is an iconic brand and has been producing high quality marmalades since 1864. Golden Shred is rightly the 'Worlds Best Marmalade', the UK market leader and it will continue to be the focus for our activity in the marmalade market. Robertson's jam will remain a strong brand in the Foodservice market and will continue to be the market leading brand in mincemeat.

David Atkinson said, "Robertson's jam and Hartley's are similar products, we have decided to focus our attention on Robertson's Golden Shred marmalades and Hartley's jams in the next 12 months"

Hartley's takes quarter of jam market

Hartley's, Premier Foods' leading jam brand, has increased its share to more than 25% of the total jam market for the first time. Data from IRI for the 52 w/e 15 November 2008 shows that in the latest four week period, Hartley's value share reached 25.3%, up 38% on the same period last year. Hartley's is outperforming the total jam market, which increased by 9% to £83.5m in the 52 weeks to 15 November 2008. In the year to 15 November 2008 Hartley's jam sales rose by 35%. Hartley's total sales are growing strongly too, up 29% in the four weeks to 15 November 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.