SymphonyIRI Group Reveals FMCG Retail Trends Across Europe

9 November 2011 SymphonyIRI Group, a provider of consultancy, market measurement and shopper insights to the worlds leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) retailers and manufacturers, has launched its regular quarterly analysis to provide key retail trends, with insights into the most popular categories across Europe.

The Pulse reports include comparable sales figures, category shares, winning and losing categories in each country with an analysis of impacting factors. The results of the research indicate the effects of pricing, promotion and innovation, plus the pressure of private labels on national brands.

Some of the key findings include:

The impact of the financial crisis has seen people return to preparing meals in the home, with a growth in convenience frozen ready meals, mainly snacks such as pizza. Frozen food experienced good growth across Europe, up +2.4% (although a slight reduction in growth in UK compared to last year, -0.2%). Ice-cream sales increased during this period due to the unusual warm spring across Europe. Germany and UK account for 54% of the value share of frozen food. The top 3 sub categories increase their dominance: ready meals, Ice cream and frozen fish. (Frozen Food Pulse Q2 2011);

Our research shows that Europe loves its cats. Europeans increased their spending by 53 million euros on cat food. Dog snacks and treats are increasingly important and significant and private label is growing across most of the markets, although the appeal of private labels in the UK has diminished as branded promotions now share a similar price point. (Pet Pulse Q2 2011);

The Ambient category (baked products/shelf stable products/dried foods/snacks etc), shows a growth in value sales in all countries, but growth is behind the total growth of the market. The economic outlook seems to provide a fertile soil for private label. Even more so if innovation stays at a low level. Crisps and Snacks is the big winner

due to heavy promotions, base price increases and a lot of innovation. Its followed by sweet and savoury biscuits (especially in UK). (Ambient Pulse Q2 2011);

Globally the Household category is stable with only +0.2% of growth in value over the year. Cleaning and detergents are the two categories suffering pan-European decline, despite increased levels of promotions, while Italy and Spain are the 2 key drivers. Paper disposables, such as toilet paper and kitchen rolls, is the category with the highest value sales growth, with UK, France and Spain having the highest contribution. Due to a global shortage of paper pulp there have been significant and unprecedented increases in the cost of raw materials, which is the basis of very positive cross country sales growth. (Household Pulse Q2 2011).

Paul Crick, VP, International Consulting Group, comments on the results, The research mirrors what we are seeing across the economy, country by country. The current financial crisis means that shoppers across Europe need to be mindful of the household budget. All consumers are being cautious about the way that they spend their income. They recognise value for money and manufacturers and retailers need to be even more aware of this than they are today and respond accordingly. The research within these reports provides a level of detail that, when analysed, will enable brands and retailers to begin to develop a more granular approach to their pricing and promotional strategies, as opposed to taking a proposition to market that does not provide the consumer with sufficient relevance and value. Its not good enough just to say were big and we have a big brand anymore. Shoppers are smarter than that. If you would like to receive a copy of the SymphonyIRI Group Pulse Reports, please email Teresa@eurekacomms.co.uk, or download fromhttp://www.symphonyiri.eu/Insights/PulseReports/tabid/271/Default.aspx.

SymphonyIRI Category Experts can also provide insights and deeper trends if you are writing features on any of these categories or more generally on food and non food FMCG industry and retail. About the Pulse Reports Pulse reports are developed by SymphonyIRIs Category Experts who have unique and deep expertise of their category across countries. Trends are built from sales data collected

by SymphonyIRI in all major grocery outlets across six major countries in Europe (UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain). Ten categories are covered globally and country by country: ambient, confectionary, drinks, frozen food, household, baby, personal care, alcohol, chilled & fresh and pet products.

These reports provide a deep understanding of categories, enabling sales and marketing teams to quickly identify categories performance, to benchmark them against other European countries and to understand what the impacting factors are. There are useful documents of reference to analyse a specific market when preparing marketing plans for brand management, product launch and sales strategy.

About SymphonyIRI Group SymphonyIRI Group, formely named Information Resources, Inc (IRI) is the global leader in innovative solutions and services for driving revenue and profit growth in CPG, retail and healthcare companies. SymphonyIRI offers two families of solutions: core solutions for market measurement and Symphony AdvantageTM solutions for enabling new growth opportunities in marketing, sales, shopper marketing and category management. SymphonyIRI solutions uniquely combine content, analytics and technology to deliver maximum impact. SymphonyIRI helps companies create, plan and execute forward-looking, shopper-centric strategies across every level of the organization.

For further information or a copy of the research report please contact: Teresa Horscroft Eureka Communications Tel: +44 1420 564346 Mobile: +44 7990 520390 Email: teresa@eurekacomms.co.uk

Or

Anne Lefranc Marketing Director at Symphony IRI Group Email: anne.lefranc@SymphonyIRI.com Tel : +33 1 30 06 23 62