Focus On Savoury Pastries & Meat Snacks: 19 November

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Publishing: 19 November

Advertising deadline: 3 November

Submissions deadline: 31 October

Contact: Natalie Brown (natalie_brown@live.co.uk)

The Story

Britain is a nation of carnivores. And our penchant for porky products and dried meat snacks such as jerky and biltong is growing. As a country, we’ve put away more than an extra 9 million packs of supermarket bought pork pies, sausage rolls and savoury slices in the past year; we’ve chomped through 4 million packs of meat snacks. What’s driven this?

Trends

Brands v own label: Brands are beating own label in this category. Why? And which brands are making the most of Britain’s growing appetite for meat products? How are they using factors such as NPD, promotions advertising and marketing to win over shoppers?

Price/promotions: This feature will also investigate how the marketing and advertising strategies of the category’s biggest players have evolved over the past year and how they will develop in the coming year to sustain growth or return brands to growth. Have meat snacking companies been investing heavily to drive growth in this sector? What about pie producers?

Meat snacks: The strong growth in meat snacks will be a key element of this story. We will investigate which brands and retailers are driving this growth, how these products are being promoted, priced and merchandised and what’s next for the sector?

On-the-go: Another area of interest is how meat snack and savoury pastry brands are tapping into the on-the-go market. Are retailers dedicating more space to them in the on-the-go aisles/convenience stores? And are manufacturers bringing out more products aimed at this market?

Retailers: How are different retailers approaching this category and what impact are their strategies having on their performance? We are particularly interested in how different retailers’ branded and own label ranges and approaches to merchandising, price, promotions vary.

Innovation: Key to this feature will be a discussion of the latest NPD from the category’s brands and own label players, large and small. The feature will explore the market trends that have inspired these innovations and weigh up which new launches are most likely to encourage new trends in the market. We identify 8 meat snacks innovations, 4 pies innovations and 4 savoury pastry innovations that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before, including launch date and RSP, and source a hi-res picture of each.

Pork scratchings: Recent years has seen huge growth in the range of pork scratchings and crackling products competing for shelf space. Who’s doing best in this market and how is the overall market performing? With a number of brands using particularly premium cues in their marketing, what’s happening to prices?