Danone buys Swedish probiotic brand ProViva

This morning it was announced that dairy and functional dairy giant Danone buys the Swedish functional health brand ProViva, up to now owned by the Swedish company Skånemejerier. A Danone spokesperson says its a purchase in line with the Danone brand mission - and a good move to develop their product range further.

ProViva is a successful brand in Sweden with a range of nice fruit drink products with probiotic powers. The ProViva brand is all based on the discovery of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v based on in depth clinical research in Lund, Sweden in the 1980's. Today ProViva benefits from a trusted and well researched health claim.

The ProViva brand claim is something like 'The best friend for tummies' , i.e fruit drinks that help tummies or gut bacteria to be and remain healthy.

ProViva is well represented in most Swedish supermarkets and the brand also benefits hugely from being referred to by Swedish health practitioners. It's mostly the well-known product range of fruit drinks that you see being well-stocked at all leading retailers. But apart from the fruit drinks ProViva also makes an interesting range of goodies. How about the so called Shots? Similar in style to the Knorr Vie shots but also benefiting from probiotic bacteria. And how abut Proviva Active, a range of Fruit Drinks with probiotics but also with added carbs and protein - for those of us who are particularly active and need to boost our energy levels.
Last but not least, ProViva launched ProViva Female last year, a range of fruit drinks especially developed for women of fertile age, with added iron, folate and vitamin C. What a range!

I hope the involvement of Danone will help to build this great brand to even further greatness - who knows, it may even take on the world much beyond our Nordic borders. I certainly hope so! With this purchase Danone takes a further step to strengthen its portfolio of health and functional food brands. ProViva is a good addition to their brand portfolio - well done Danone!

Youth boosts egg sales in Sweden

Fri Köpenskap reports today that it is the swedish youth who boost the latest sales increase. for eggs. Apparently last year swedes ate 71m more eggs than the previous year! That's a bloody lot of eggs! And it is a sales increase of 5%, the highest in many, many years.

So, what stands behind this development? Why on earth do the swedes eat more eggs? Well, You Gov were commissioned by Svensk Ägg (Swedish Egg organisation) to explore the reasons why in what appears to be an 'only' quant exercise based on 1024 interviews. The very quant answer is apparently that more and more swedes eat egg for breakfast. Almost one in four claim to eat more eggs today than a year ago (this is not the easiest thing to measure - since it is hard to put an estimate on past behaviours!). In the age group 18-29 23% of respondents claim to eat more eggs today than a year ago. In the older age group 50-65, 17% claim to eat more eggs than a year ago. I want to know more. So, do a couple of groups as well will ya and let us know the reasoning, behaviours and attitudes that lie behind!

ICA To go - for time-starved city Swedes

Are city Swedes ready for ready-meals? ICA, the largest food retailer in Sweden appears to think so with the launch of ICA To go – a new convenience food retail concept for time poor city dwellers. The new concept will be focused on providing fresh food, ‘fast to cook’ food and ready-meal solutions for time-poor, and (most likely) fairly cash rich city folks. The first shop will open on busy Kungsgatan sometime later this spring. The move also follows the success of Gooh, the innovative ready-meals initiative by Lantmännen. After five years in the Stockholm region where Gooh is moving from strength to strength. The Gooh movement is now moving over the Swedish west-coast with 18 so called ‘shop-in-shop’ retail spots opening across Gothenburg during February 2010. From its launch until this day Gooh hasn’t really faced any serious competition. Tthe ICA move is a sure sign that this privileged situation won’t last forever. The interesting thing will be to see what kinds of food ICA have dec ided to offer time-starved city folks and professionals. Gooh’s offer is hard to beat with their offer of high quality, premium ready-meals based on their co-operation with Swedish maestro chef Stefano Catenacci.

Well, this sure is an interesting development in Sweden, where we don’t yet have the convenience food retail concepts similar to e.g. Tesco Extra, M&S Food and Sainsbury’s Local that one can spot on any high-street in the UK. So,soon I’ll be back with my first report after visiting Ica To go. Being one of those time-starved people I hope it will be a positive one!

Is Sweden facing an online food revolution?

Well, I asked myself that question as I read the summary of the Coop report - a usage and attitude consumer report with more than 43000 respondents, with data compiled and published by Coop, a Swedish retailer.
 According to the report the internet has become a highly important source of inspiration for Swedish consumers. Almost six out of ten consumers claim to use the internet as their primary source of food and dinner inspiration. And the most important thing is to compare these findings to the 2007 figures. In 2007, just two years ago, only 14% said the same thing! So, in two years the importance of the internet as food inspiration has increased by 43%... I must admit that I haven't studied the details of how the data has been compiled and analysed but I do find these findings interesting!

It makes me wonder if Sweden is facing an online food shopping revolution. Are Swedes ready for online food shopping too?  I used to love online grocery shopping. In London I used Sainsburys online. I miss Sainsburys by the way... lots! And I started doing online food shopping in its infancy... 2003 it was. In those days I must admit that it wasn't the most fraction free experience. I often received the wrong goods but... it still was far better than taking the bus to and from the supermarket with fifteen plastic bags of very poor quality in tow... This year Mintel reports that one in three (35%) adults in the UK shop online for food, but just one in nine (11%) do so regularly or exclusively. Mintel also estimate that online food shopping will reach £4.4 billion in 2009, which in turn means that the online grocery market has grown a massive 134% since 2005. I think that is a pretty impressive development.

Online grocery shopping in Sweden hardly exists. But lately several of my friends have woken up to the idea and some of them have started to do their grocery shopping online via NetXtra or Coop. Their main reasons for online grocery shopping are to make their lives easier (more convenient) and to become more inspired to try out new foods and meals... So, here we go... here's that big need for inspiration again. Maybe food inspiration is just the BIG benefit that the online grocery retailers should build their offer around! I'm in a massive need of food inspiration. And, with great benefits like that I might just soon do my grocery shopping online too.

Fewer smoothies due to recession?

I just read that one of my favourite brands - Smoothie maker Innocent is guilty of a £9m loss for 2008. Innocent racked up the loss as sales fell by 7%, including a 17% drop in the UK during the year.  And to that came one-off costs which meant that an operating loss of £1.1m for 2008 soared to more than £9m.
These news came just after figures from Nielsen showed signs of recovery in the smoothie market after a prolonged slump in the UK when e.g. PepsiCo brand PJ Smoothies didn't survive the slump and got axed...

Sales of Innocent, which this year sold a £30m stake to US soft drinks giant Coca-Cola in order to improve their investment opportunities, rose 10% in the 12 weeks to 5 September. So hopefully the bad times are over. What do you think? Will Innocent survive and continue to thrive?

Nestlé will use only sustainable palm oil

The Grocer reports that Nestlé has promised to use only sustainable palm oil from 2015. Nestlé includes palm oil as an ingredient in many of its confectionery and dairy products - in fact, the baby porridge that I feed my baby with every day has palm oil as one of its ingredients. Not something that I am very proud of... But you cannot find a single baby porridge without palm oil on the retail shelves! So what should a poor mother do? Well, at least Nestlé promises to use only certified-sustainable palm oil from 2015.

I am pleased to hear those news. But to make a difference to the environment in the long term more companies need to do much more to reduce the amount of palm oil they use or at least ensure that they buy their palm oil from sustainable sources. And consumers need to wake up to frequent use of palm oil in everyday products. In Sweden this is not yet a debate - but hopefully it will be a debate soon and hopefully this debate should ensure that companies buy only sustainable palm oil from that point forward.

Ready-meals take a bashing!

Svenska Dagbladet reports that sales of ready-meals has gone down in Sweden due to a major wave of criticism regarding their nutritional content and, too often large number of additives such as E-numbers and food colourants. Personally I think it is fantastic that consumers learn more about food and nutrition and demand better food. However, I don't think it is fair to pass on all the criticism on the food industry. Consumers also have to take responsibility for what they at the end of the day decide to eat. If consumers want and are prepared to pay for healthy and nutritious foods and ready-meals, I'm convinced that the food industry will ensure that this is being delivered on their plates.

Interesting facts from Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey

All the information below has been copied from the study... Which claims that:
PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONSUMER OPINIONS POSTED ONLINE ARE THE MOST TRUSTED FORMS OF ADVERTISING GLOBALLY
Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally, according to the latest twice yearly Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries.
The Nielsen survey, the largest of its kind, shows that nine in every ten Internet consumers worldwide (90 percent) trust recommendations from people they know, while seven in every ten (70 percent) trust consumer opinions posted online.
However, in this new age of consumer control, advertisers will be encouraged by the fact that brand websites – the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising – are trusted by as many people (70 percent) as consumer opinions posted online"Brand websites, globally the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising, hold the greatest sway in
China (82 percent). Following China are Pakistan (81 percent) and Vietnam (80 percent). However, brand websites tend to be trusted least amongst Swedish (40 percent) and Israeli (45 percent) Internet consumers. The U.S. ranks 22 amongst the countries surveyed with 70 percent of U.S. Internet consumers trusting brand websites."

How come Swedes are least impressed by brand websites? I'm intrigued and will get back to this topic once I know more...

Dirty news about IKEA...

So... it was just a matter of time until it happened. Now a former employee of IKEA called Johan Stenebo tells us all the nasties behind this famous Swedish brand. I get a bit pissed off... Because I'm one of these people who just love IKEA. IKEA is an amazing Swedish innovative brand and something that all Swedes should be so very proud of. In fact, I find that IKEA is better at promoting Sweden abroad than the Swedish tourist council (sorry guys!). Durint the many years I have lived abroad IKEA has been an oasis of Swedish life and culture. I personally don't care if there are some issues behind the scenes in the Kamprad family. They are still doing a marvellous job and that is enough for me. They are innovative, with fantastic products, and a great strong brand that has more presence than most. Go IKEA!

Demand for premium despite recession

Mintel are reporting on some interesting news in the UK. They claim that shoppers are still turning to premium products, despite generally trading down as part of the recession. And remember that the recession have hit Britain much worse than Sweden... So as far as trading down goes - what do the cash-strapped British shoppers do. Well some of them have traded-down from brands to own-label (but remember that own label is of high quality in the UK). Shoppers also claim to save money by purchasing more products on special offers, with 54% reporting buying more deals. Some 51% claim to eat out less, while 21% says that they buy more products from discount retailers such as Aldi and Lidl.

This is not surprising at all - the interesting news are that as consumers claim to have saved money by splashing out less, they also claim to treat themselves more on products such as confectionery or premium ready meals. I think this is really interesting news. I have been told so many times by fellow marketeers that the recession will hit hard on premium foods - I don't think it will! Consumers have different needs and their demand for nice foodstuffs won't disappear due to the recession. And food is not particularly expensive if you compare to other goods. It is certainly easier to treat yourself to a nice pack of chocolates or a good bottle of wine rather than a new car...