Consumer Trends in the Confectionery Market in the US

Synopsis

This report provides the results for the Confectionery market in the US from Canadean’s unique, highly detailed and proprietary survey of consumers’ Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) consumption habits, and forms part of an overall series covering all CPG product markets.Its coverage includes, but is not limited to, consumption behaviors, the extent to which consumer trends influence their consumption and the value of the market these trends influence, brand and private label choices as well as retailer choices. Much of this information can also be analyzed by specific consumer group, providing hard and fast data on consumers and markets at the product category level.

Summary

Why was the report written?
Marketers in the Confectionery market face a major challenge. Understanding market size and segmentation is valuable, but the keys to effective targeting is knowing just how valuable specific consumer groups are, and being able to quantify the impact of consumer trends.This report solves these problems by providing integrated survey-based data on consumer trends, consumer groups and market data which show exactly the size of consumer groups, how much of the Confectionery market they account for and which consumer trends drive their behavior.

What is the current market landscape and what is changing?
As consumer confidence increases proportionally to economic recovery, consumer trends will be directly affected. Since the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 the retail market has been characterized by an increased amount of discount and own-brand products. Chocolate, Gum and Sugar Confectionary are not considered essential items and therefore consumption patterns have been comparatively affected. The relatively weak US economy means it is essential to understand what pockets of growth might exist and whether these represent value or volume opportunities.

What are the key drivers behind recent market changes?
Consumers’ uptake of products and the influence of consumer trends are fundamental causes of change in markets – making knowing what these trends are and the extent of their influence crucial.The survey-based data provided in this report examines over 20 consumer trends that affect the market and examines the share of sales across 26 consumer groups – providing through the data a detailed insight into exactly who the consumer is and just how much impact the latest consumer trends are having.

What makes this report unique and essential to read?
The data provided is unique in the market as it tracks consumer behavior through to its actual value impact on a product market. This provides readers with a unique data analysis of the market allowing marketing tactics and strategy to be updated in line with the very latest consumer behaviors.

Scope

Consumer survey data for the following specific categories: the Chocolate, Gum and Sugar Confectionery markets.

Detailed consumer segmentation based on survey data covering over 26 consumer groups, 20 consumer trends and consumption frequency for each product category.

Volume shares in 2011 for brands and private label sales tracked by the survey.

Unique retailer choice and switching data as tracked by the survey are provided at the product category level for 2011.

Reasons To Buy

Unique proprietary data that sizes and segments consumers, tracks their behavior and shows the impact of this on their markets

Results also cover over 20 consumer trends, showing exactly to what extent these trends have a direct influence on a market. As this impact assessment is based not only on how many consumers act on these trends, but also how often they act on this it provides unique insight into the “size of the prize” when targeting these consumer trends in each category covered.

Key Highlights

Chocolate accounts for 62% of the US Confectionery market by value and 65% of the market by volume. Sugar Confectionery is the second-largest category, with a value market share over twice as large as Gum.

Private label penetration is low in the Confectionery market in the US, highest in the Sugar Confectionery product category at 3% of the volume of products distributed. Confectionery markets tend to be strongly brand-driven, with strong differentiation between products, explaining this low penetration.

Indulgence is the most important trend in the Confectionery market in the US, closely followed by Personal Space and Time. Not only do a large proportion of US consumers, particularly in the Chocolate product category, highlight that these consumer trends have an influence on their consumption; this translates into a significant proportion of actual value being directly influenced as well.