It’s not often that a ‘new’ category arrives in travel retail with a clear positioning, strong brands and evidence from domestic markets to suggest we’ve been missing a trick for years, writes Mondelez World Travel Retail Category Marketing Manager Irina Tarabanko.
With biscuits, we have that very rare thing: a multi-billion-dollar global product category which represents 43% of confectionery domestically, but currently only a modest single-digit share in travel retail.
It only takes a cursory look at supermarket aisles to notice how much space is dedicated to world-famous biscuit brands, and how comparatively invisible the category has been in duty free until quite recently.
Our research and data points to a category on the up, and with serious potential – growing at four times the rate of chocolate in the channel. The incremental opportunity is huge: 26% of potential shoppers who do not purchase confectionery in travel retail would be willing to purchase biscuits.
Where before biscuits might have been lumped in with chocolate or candy, we’re working hard to develop biscuits as a category in its own right, or at least a recognised sister category to chocolate.
Growth story
Biscuits only really began to emerge with the global launch of Oreo in travel retail in 2012. Since then, the brand has achieved a CAGR of +50%. Over the last seven years, Mondelez WTR has added other products, such as the Cadbury and Milka biscuits collections, to the portfolio. We’ve seen some other entrants to the market too, which is fantastic news for shoppers and the channel.
Last year, we saw a +19% net revenue increase in biscuits. And it’s not all about Oreo. Our Milka Biscuits Collection sales have more than doubled in net revenue. Promotional activations saw three-digit-growth rates. Within the Mondelez WTR portfolio, the share of biscuits multiplied over the last 6 years and has become a noticeable part of our business.
Enter the Biscuit Bakery
As part of our efforts, Mondelez WTR has developed Biscuit Bakery, a multi-brand concept for travel retail, designed to signpost the biscuit category in-store. We’ve tried and tested it on both virtual reality stores and real-life trials. It works. In fact, it works very well.
Biscuit Bakery has helped promote combinations of our biscuit brands, Oreo, Milka and Cadbury, in point-of-sale communications, permanent merchandising and sampling stations. High-profile events, integrating digital gamification, have also leveraged on the Biscuit Bakery concept to animate the category and engage travellers with its delicious possibilities.
Category ambitions
As an organisation, Mondelez WTR has always understood the importance of driving category growth and keeping the channel relevant to travelers, and our biscuits philosophy is no different. I’m pleased to see the recent arrival of a Nutella Biscuits line, launched first in travel retail at Luxembourg Airport, and I’m sure others will follow.
Capitalising on this very clear and sizeable opportunity, especially in the Sharing, Fun and Snack need states, will require commitment, collaboration and innovation from brand owners, retailers and landlords – in true Trinity fashion.
What makes this particularly exciting is that this isn’t a journey into the unknown. There’s no reason why the biscuit category’s development needs to be characterised by trial and error, or gambles.
We can draw on tried and tested blueprints, from best practice in domestic biscuit markets and Mondelez’s research into biscuits in travel retail, as well as learnings from the wider confectionery category in the channel. We can leverage a combination of global power brands and local favourites to ensure that biscuit offers around the world delight travellers, across multiple need states.
This is the recipe for success.
*This feature appears in Moodie Davitt Confectionery Curated, a monthly enewsletter series that offers a selection of stories focused on key categories in travel retail and beyond. If you would like to be added to the Curated Confectionery mailing list (or to those for any other Moodie Davitt titles), please e-mail Sinead Moodie at Sinead@MoodieDavittReport.com
