Unilever has ensured peanut butter will be among this year’s ubiquitous tastes by including two products with the flavour in its summer NPD.
The category’s leading brand, Magnum, will see a relaunch of its Magnum Double range. New flavour Peanut Butter, which first launched in the US last year, joins existing variants Chocolate and Caramel, which have been available intermittently in recent years. All three flavours are available as a single (rsp: £1.90), with Chocolate and Peanut Butter also in a three-pack (rsp: £3.35).
Magnum will once again benefit from a £13m campaign, this year called Dare To Go Double, which runs from April to August and will include major experiential components. The launches and activity follow last year’s Magnum Pink and Black, which racked up sales of £23.8m by October, making it the UK’s biggest-ever ice cream NPD, Unilever claimed [Nielsen 52 w/e 10 October 2015].
The Feast brand is being extended with a Feast Snack Bar, consisting of peanut butter ice cream with a caramel core, coated in chocolate with pieces of peanut. It will be available in single (rsp: £1) and six-packs (rsp: £2.25). Feast will also be joining the Wall’s ‘talking ice cream’ campaign. Twister, also a part of the campaign, will get a new Blackcurrant flavour, in single (rsp: £1) and six-packs (rsp: £2.49).
There will also be a new variant for the premium Cornetto Disc range: Choc ‘n’ Caramel Crunch, which replaces Cookies ‘n’ Dream, in single (rsp: £1.50) and four-packs (rsp: £2.99). The returning flavour, Peanut Butter Love, is one of two peanut butter flavour ice creams that joined Unilever’s range last year, along with Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Cores flavour Utter Peanut Butter Clutter.
Peanut Butter has boomed in popularity, both in its own right and as a flavour in other categories. Sales of the spread are up 11.4% to £69.6m [Kantar 52 w/e 11 October 2015]. Last August, Mondelez included peanut butter as one of two new flavours of Oreos in the brand’s first UK flavour extension. Nestlé reintroduced the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter on a permanent basis in 2012, after previously having it as a limited edition.
All the new products fall within Unilever’s calorie cap. The company is relaunching its entire adult single-serve ice cream range with a calorie limit of 250 per portion - a change that will involve reformulating some products, reducing the size of others, and taking some off the market. It follows a similar move last year across its kids’ ice creams, which now have a 110-calorie cap.
No comments yet