US cereal brand Honey Bunches of Oats is withdrawing from the UK market - for now, at least.

A year after launching in the UK with national ads and listings in a range of retailers, the supermarket presence of Honey Bunches - one of the biggest cereal brands in the US - has been reduced to a single SKU in Tesco stores [Brandview].

And this week, distributor Brands Direct - which has exclusive rights to Post Foods’ Honey Bunches in the UK - revealed the brand would be withdrawing from the UK until a European manufacturing site could be established.

“Although our sales success was tremendous within those customers that stocked the range, sadly some retailers did not support the brand with listing agreements,” said a spokesman for Brands Direct, which claimed Honey Bunches had had a “major effect” on sales of similar competitor brands.

Some industry observers have suggested Honey Bunches did not receive the marketing or promotional support it needed.

“I suspect they hit a listing brick wall in an extremely congested market and importing all the way from the US for something that bulky and low priced was questionable,” said one cereal market supplier.

Brands Direct said it would continue to distribute Post’s Grape nuts cereal brand in the UK, adding that there were major developments planned for the brand in the coming year. “Grape Nuts has been growing every year since we took over the UK distribution,” said a spokesman.

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