The Delicious Dessert Co’s Claire Smith on winning back younger shoppers

When Covid hit in 2020, the food and drink industry went into survival mode. Yet at Bakkavor, the senior team had one eye on a new avenue for growth: traditional chilled desserts.

“The idea of the brand came through early lockdown,” says Claire Smith, head of insights at Bakkavor brand The Delicious Dessert Company. “We did a whole bunch of research and felt there was an opportunity for completely different flavours and something new and interesting.”

Éclairs, cream doughnuts, potted puddings and similar old favourites were struggling, recalls Smith. The chilled desserts category was over-indexing with older, female shoppers rather than the up-and-coming generation, which was largely uninterested, she says.

So in 2021, The Delicious Dessert Company brand launched into retail with one key aim: to make chilled desserts young and cool once again.

As Smith says, a key part of its strategy was to introduce new and exciting flavours. Bakkavor’s market research found chilled desserts “weren’t resonating” with millennial and gen Z shoppers as much as ice cream, “where there’s lots of different emerging flavours and combinations”, she explains.

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Éclairs, for example, “hadn’t really changed in donkeys’ years”. Traditionally, they came with just a single filling – cream – and a chocolate fondant coating. Younger shoppers were bored, says Smith.

“Customers were saying to us they wanted new and interesting flavours, but they also wanted them loaded and really visual,” she recalls. Smith – along with Bakkavor’s development chefs – started off by injecting new fillings into the traditional choux buns.

So The Delicious Dessert Company’s first trio of éclairs was born: Strawberries & Cream, filled with strawberry crème pâtissière and cream; Sticky Toffee, containing sticky toffee crème pâtissière and toffee sauce; and Triple Chocolate, loaded with chocolate mousse and cream.

“We were doing focus groups and sending them to people’s houses across the country, and we got such a good response we decided to pursue it and launch them into supermarkets,” Smith says.

They hit the shelves in Sainsbury’s in April 2021. Buoyed by the response, The Delicious Dessert Company added a limited-edition Celebration Eclair in May 2022, which launched exclusively into Tesco for nine weeks to coincide with the late Queen’s jubilee.

Next came its sparkly, double chocolate King of Eclairs, which hit Tesco in April 2023 to mark King Charles’ coronation.

The brand soon set its sights beyond the chiller. In 2023, it entered ambient bakery with a trio of Yum Yums. The Chocolate Orange, Millionaire’s and Raspberry Funfetti flavours quickly gained “real traction, particularly with younger shoppers”, says Smith.

Subsequent launches have included Blonde Chocolate Eclairs and limited-edition festive Naughty But Nice Yum Yums, decorated with red strawberry fondant, green lacing and white chocolate stars, both of which hit Tesco in October.

A treat in a crisis

The treats are clearly designed to appeal to taste buds. No one’s pretending they’re healthy. “They’re really indulgent products, designed for when you want something sweet to finish off the week,” says Smith.

That could be seen as a negative, given the increasingly health-conscious environment. However, Smith believes treats have become even more important to consumers in today’s crisis-hit times.

“In lockdown, all the things shoppers would normally treat themselves with, like holidays, disappeared,” she points out. That was swiftly followed by the cost of living crisis, which made restaurant and café trips less accessible.

The Delicious Dessert Company aims to offer an affordable alternative to those out-of-home treats, says Smith. It’s not about becoming a regular part of the shopping list.

“It’s all about that balance and moderation, plus honesty to consumers. You can see what you’re buying.” As such, “we’ve had really lovely support from the retailers”, despite the recent location restrictions on HFSS foods and an industry-wide push to bolster health commitments.

“Retailers have a balance [of healthy and unhealthy products] within their own stores and portfolios and are able to direct customers wherever they want to go,” says Smith.

That retailer support is reflected in its sales figures. Unit sales for The Delicious Dessert Company increased by 55% in 2023, according to Bakkavor [52 w/e 31 December 2023]. And they’re up 3.8% so far this year [YTD 30 June 2024], earning a place in the traditional big four.

In a bid to continue that growth, the brand introduced new lines in April, including Millionaire’s and Cookies & Cream cheesecake fingers, and two Pot O’licious Desserts: Chocolate & Caramel and Zesty Lemon. All four desserts are listed by Asda, while the pot desserts are in Tesco.

Innovation clearly remains a focus for the business. “When it comes to deciding which flavours to launch, we look at all kinds of things”, says Smith. “We look at social media, we look at other areas like ice creams and we run a lot of focus groups.”

She points to the launch of its Caramelised Biscuit Yum Yums into Tesco in April. That was a no-brainer given the trend for Biscoff, she says: “I go on to TikTok and see it all the time.”

Social media isn’t just used for inspiration. Given the youth focus of the brand, Instagram and TikTok content is an important part of The Delicious Dessert Company’s marketing strategy. That is set to become even more important in light of the proposed restrictions on the advertising of HFSS foods, set to come into force in October next year.

“A lot of the work we do is on social media,” says Smith, whether that be through influencer partnerships or “Local Heroes giveaways, which happen on a Sunday. People can nominate someone, and we’ll give them products.”

The brand has also given out samples at events such as Wildfire rock music festival in Scotland, and at pumpkin farm Pumpkin Moon in Maidstone. Reassuringly for Smith, the products appealed to both metalheads and children.

Even more NPD is hitting shelves in September but, for now, Smith is keeping tight-lipped on the details. She insists, though, that the brand is open to shopper suggestions – however wacky the flavours may be.

“My passion is peeking into people’s shopping baskets and seeing what they’re buying, and I love listening to what consumers say in focus groups,” she says. “Of all the things you can do, thinking up flavours for cakes has got to be right up there.”