When it comes to sweet treats, chocolate is the nation’s favourite and the latest figures from Key Note show that its value continues to grow at rates ahead of sugar confectionery.
The Key Note Confectionery Market Report 2015 shows that the overall confectionery market value has grown by 16.3% since 2010, with chocolate recording 16.4% growth against 16.2% for sugar confectionery.
After two years of faster growth value for sugar confectionery, chocolate has shown the bigger growth in the last two years, recording 4.5% of growth in 2013 and 2.3% in 2014.
And Key Note predicts another 8.6% of growth to a value of £4.81bn in 2019.
Of the four sub-sectors within chocolate, countlines – defined by Key Note as single-serve bars and bags that are sold in both single units and multipacks – was worth an estimated £1.83bn in 2014; boxed chocolates and sharing bags was worth £1.3bn; blocks and moulded bars was valued at £845m; and other chocolate confectionery was estimated to be worth £378m.
In total, chocolate accounted for 74.2% of the UK confectionery market.
But Key Note cautions that those increases in value do not necessarily reflect growth in volume.
The report says that value growth in 2014 disguised subdued volume sales and lists health concerns and the shrinking size of countlines among the reasons.
Pointing out that consumers are increasingly concerned about sugar intake, Key Note says: “While milk chocolate often contains as much or even more sugar than sugar confectionery, many consumers perceive the opposite to be true.”
• Key Note Confectionery Market report £575
