CIDER has been a drinks success story in recent years but last year the performance in terms of sales growth was very mixed, says the team behind Swedish brand Kopparberg.
Quoting Nielsen Scantrack figures to September last year Kopparberg customer marketing manager Ben
Turner said: “The big winner in 2014 was fruit cider, growing its share of the total UK off-trade cider category to 25.6% – up £63.7m on last year.”
And Turner expects the story to be similar this year.
“With pear and apple in decline, fruit has been driving the growth of the entire category and that trend looks set to continue into 2015. Kopparberg grew sales 19.6% in 2014 and is the best selling fruit cider brand in the UK off-trade,” he said.
Kopparberg’s own category report from Autumn last year, once again using Nielsen figures in the off-trade, said its range of fruit ciders added almost £21m worth of sales in the year to 13 September 2014, an increase of 33% that took its total fruit cider sales to just under £84m.
It said Bulmers is second-biggest fruit cider in the off-trade, up by 10% over the same year to reach £50.5m while third place in fruit cider in take-home is now taken by Strongbow’s fruit lines, up by £35.1m to £48.4m.
“With space in most c-stores at a premium, retailers should look to back the proven winners and include the brands and variants consumers are going for,” said Turner.
“Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime is now the best selling strawberry variant in the UK off-trade.”
