Page 5 - Newsbites March 2019

Unilever We have enjoyed a bright start to 2019 with 34,000 cases delivered worth nearly £500k. Following very successful customer cascades, we are now concluding joint business plans in order to facilitate our full year numbers! Mars Update It has been a busy start to the year for the Mars team! Believe it or not but the ‘springfill’ on ice cream is already underway with 3 million ice creams being shipped to wholesalers in February and March alone. Sales in the major multiples are benefiting from some great improvement in distribution, notably in Tesco where YOY we have 21% more distribution points. The key launch of the first quarter is Skittles Cooler. This is a Fruit ice cream, with crunchy pearls wrapped in refreshing Strawberry Sorbet... & under 115kcal per serving You can find the three pack version in Tesco’s from the second week of March. The singles product should be widely available as all RTM wholesalers have listed it. A busy start to 2019 as we become accustomed to working with two brand owners with Upfield having now acquired the ownership of the chilled brands formerly owned by Unilever. This change has brought about instant opportunities beginning with the reformulation and relaunch of the Flora brand in April. To coincide with the media plan supporting this relaunch we are agreeing huge presence across cash & carries and retailers. We also have an exciting mix of NPD from Unilever and are securing agreements across the trade to launch Marmite Peanut Butter, Asian Street Style Noodles and two new flavours on Pot Noodle in quarter 2. Looking further ahead, we are already in customer discussions around the entire rebranding of Pot Noodle and supporting this over the autumn period as students return to university. 5