covent garden soup

Top launch: Souper Boosters - New Covent Garden

What a souper idea! New Covent Garden promises to take homemade soup to the ‘next level’ with its four-strong Souper Booster range of flavour pastes. The brand announced the range’s rollout into retail in May after more than 12,000 tubes were requested in a single day during an online promotion. Not only does the range tap the home-cooking trend, it also cashes in on growing demand for world flavours, with Aromatic Thai and Mexican Chilli among the flavours.

Soup is a sector of two halves. Fresh has grown £5m as ambient has lost 8.2m, yet the same trends are evident in both: growing demand for exotic flavours and healthy, convenient soups, and mounting price sensitivity.

Take Heinz. Its Classic range’s loss of £8.6m has been offset by gains for Cup Soup and Black Label. Cup Soup was launched in July 2014 and expanded with seven new flavours in February, including three from the premium Black Label range. The range includes products such as Tomato with Chorizo and Chicken with Aromatic Thai Spices.

“Tastes have changed dramatically over the last decade,” says Heinz assistant brand manager Marco Marioni. “Shoppers are looking for quick and easy meal solutions, which are healthy with exotic and spicy flavours, so Heinz has broadened its range to reflect this.”

Such innovation should help drive value back into ambient soup, a sector that’s of growing importance for the discounters. “While only accounting for 8% of value share, the discounters show strong growth, with value sales increasing 9% versus a year ago,” says Nielsen analyst Carlos del Castillo.

In chilled, prices have fallen 3.5% as brands and own label turn to deals to drive volumes. It’s working: volume sales are up 6.5%, though value growth is lagging behind at 2.8%. Glorious!, which has built its success on flavours from far-flung corners of the world, has scored the greatest growth in fresh with its new Skinnylicious ‘healthier’ soups.

“Increased desire for inherently healthy foods made from natural ingredients is apparent,” says Glorious! marketing controller Gavin White. “The range features exotic herbs and spices and recipes from cuisines from around the world. Consumers are becoming more adventurous.”

New Covent Garden’s Skinny range has also done well, up 5.4% on volumes up 14.1%. Its core range is down 1.7%. “Soup is still such an emotional food,” says Jeremy Hudson, CEO of Hain Daniels. “While there are emerging flavour trends from around the world, this has never been at the expense of the classics in the New Covent Garden core range.”

What’s had the greatest impact on the range’s value is deals. As volumes rose 4.8%, its prices fell to 16% below sector average.

TOP 10 Ambient  SALES
        £m change (£m) change (%)
Total volume change: –3.7% Total Category 400.2 –8.2 –2.0
      Total Own Label 50.20 –2.3 –4.4
1 1 Heinz Classic Kraft Heinz Company 153.3 –8.6 –5.3
2 2 Batchelors Cup a Soup Premier Foods 32.1 –2.9 –8.3
3 3 Heinz Big Soup Kraft Heinz Company 25.8 –0.9 –3.3
4 4 Baxters Favourites Baxters 23.9 2 9.1
5 5 Mug Shot Pasta Snack Symington’s 12.8 0.9 7.4
6 6 Mug Shot Noodle Snack Symington’s 9.1 –0.6 –6.3
7 8 Baxters Vegetarian Baxters 8.9 2.1 31.7
8 7 WeightWatchers Kraft Heinz Company 8 –1.3 –14.3
9 34 Heinz Classic Cup Soup Kraft Heinz Company 7.1 6.3 773.5
10 13 Heinz Black Label Kraft Heinz Company 6.8 2.4 55.7

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TOP 10 Fresh/chilled soup SALES
        £m change (£m) change (%)
Total volume change: 6.5% Total Category 186.00 5 2.8
      Total Own Label 119.1 0.6 0.5
1 1 New Covent Garden Hain Daniels 41.8 –0.2 –0.5
2 2 Glorious! TSC 14.9 2.7 21.9
3 3 Yorkshire Provender Yorkshire Provender 6.4 1.3 25.9
4 13 Baxters Baxters 0.6 0.5 664.2
5 12 Soupologie Soupologie 0.4 0.3 298
6 8 Tideford Organic Tideford Organic Fds 0.4 0.2 121
7 4 Bowl Bakkavor 0.4 –0.6 –62.8
8 5 Alvalle Alvalle 0.3 0 9.5
9 6 Daylesford Organic Daylesford Organic 0.3 0.1 20
10 10 Scotty Scotty Brand 0.3 0.1 90.3

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