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NITR General Manager Stewart Dryburgh (top photo, left, being interviewed by Martin Moodie): “The potential of the category is there. When you put confectionery in front of people, they will buy. We have got to make it more visible to shoppers.” |
CANNES. Confectionery can drive industry footfall and play a key role in increasing average spend and overall sales. That was one of the many positive messages to emerge from a packed ‘Cannes-fectionery’ workshop hosted yesterday by Nestle International Travel Retail (NITR).
Well over 100 buyers and some fellow suppliers attended the event, which saw NITR General Manager Stewart Dryburgh mounting a strong case to seminar participants that sales for confectionery could be doubled in the next five years.
“The potential of the category is there. When you put confectionery in front of people, they will buy. We have got to make it more visible to shoppers,” he said.
He pointed out that major retailers such as Gebr Heinemann, World Duty Free, Dubai Duty Free, Bahrain Duty Free, Abu Dhabi Duty Free and King Power Thailand have already been doing this. And airports such as Frankfurt have been applying disciplined category management to make it easier for travellers to access the category, he noted.
“In Frankfurt, they created a kids’ gondola to make it easy for the shopper to know where the children’s category is and where one can find related products,” Dryburgh said.
The open session moderated by The Moodie Report Publisher and Editor Martin Moodie also saw a strong emphasis on pricing and value for money compared to the domestic market.
Dryburgh believes that if confectionary companies and retailers come together and share information, it could move the category forward. Hence, NITR presented to all seminar participants a major research report on confectionery.
He said: “After you have looked at the report, we hope you would want to do something about the confectionery category, because there is great potential.”
The report had pointed to “a growing middle class in China, Russia, India and Brazil who are now turning to buying confectionery alone”.
MORE STORIES ON THE CONFECTIONERY CATEGORY
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