Page 27 - Food & Drink Business Magazine September 2018

CONFECTIONERY
Honeycomb heads south
✷ BLOCKBUSTER FRUCHOC FUN
Last month Robern Menz kicked off its seventh annual FruChoc Appreciation Day.
The event, which took place on 24 August, celebrates the treat that South Australians have been enjoying since 1948.
To mark the day the company created a new strawberry-flavoured FruChoc, a vegan FruChoc
made from dairy-free dark chocolate, collaborated
with Krispy Kreme on a
product mash-up, and
organised
a major activation in the
Rundle Mall, plus
extensive media
coverage.
The company also launched a limited edition chocolate block based on the FruChocs classic apricot flavour – the company’s first offering in the block sub-category.
“Block chocolate is all about that tradition of sharing at home,” Robern Menz chief executive Phil Sims says.
“We are trialling that through our three shops and it will be available on FruChoc Appreciation Day.”
Robern Menz has taken delivery of Nestlé’s Violet Crumble line as it welcomes the iconic brand into the fold.
SOUTH Australian manufacturer Robern Menz has been busy bedding down the production line that creates the iconic Violet Crumble in its Adelaide facility.
The company bought the brand, and the equipment that creates it, off Nestlé in a multi-million dollar deal earlier this year that returns it to Australian ownership, a mission that has involved a factory refit and extension and new warehousing facilities.
The Violet Crumble brand is still one of Australia’s great food icons, according to the chief executive of the fourth- generation family company
Phil Sims.
“It’s about what Australians long for when they are overseas, and their memories from childhood, and Violet Crumble consistently comes up in the same conversation as Vegemite
and Tim Tams,” Sims says. “To get hold of that kind of
brand and to take it from its current base back to the distribution and volumes that it used to have is exciting for us.”
The manufacturing equipment has now been transported to Adelaide from Nestlé’s facility in Melbourne and is the process of being reassembled by Robern Menz.
“That’s involved lots of work in our factory,” Sims says. “The brand’s sales, marketing and distribution, which has been
Foundation that will see Robern Menz source all of its cocoa sustainably by 2020. (The company was also the first Australian confectioner to move to certified sustainable palm oil in 2012).
Robern Menz makes its own Menz-brand choc honeycomb, which it sells nationally and in a number of export markets including North America, Japan and most recently, South Korea.
The Menz chock honeycomb has a different recipe and texture to Violet Crumble, and
“ It’s about what Australians long for when they are overseas... and Violet Crumble consistently comes up in the same conversation as Vegemite and Tim Tams.”
handled by Nestlé during the transition, also comes across to us at the end of September.”
It’s not only the recipe and production that will stay the same – aside from removing the Nestlé logo, the features and purple colours of the product’s packaging won’t change.
The product will, however, benefit from a new partnership with the Cocoa Horizons
is different again to honeycomb rival Crunchy from Mondelez International.
“People are very passionate about their particular preference.” Sims says. “We will run the two as separate brands, with separate demographics, that talk to different occasions.
“It’s a compelling story with respect to both brands existing inthemarketplace.” ✷
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www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | September 2018 | Food&Drink business | 27