"Major sugar confectionery manufacturers prepared for the future this year by introducing lower-sugar offerings," says Cameron Sharp, senior client manager at Nielsen. "Rowntrees and Fruittella's 30% less sugar fruity confections ranges have grown by £2.8m and £1.8m respectively year on year, with major retailers increasing the availability of these products on shelf."

Swizzels Matlow's Drumstick sub-brand saw by far the fastest growth this year, with value sales climbing £7.6m (27.5%) to total £35.4m on volumes up 25.9%. The brand attributes much of its growth to Drumstick Choos, launched in April of last year, and the continued success of Drumstick Squashies, launched in June 2012. Both lines target vegetarian and vegan consumers, with sales director Mark Walker claiming Squashies is now "the UK's fastest-growing sugar confectionery brand and Swizzels' bestselling range, worth £39m and in 27% growth year on year." The current rate of sales for the range, which includes Drumstick and Refreshers variants, is "one bag every second", says Walker. 

Mint fell out of favour this year, with sales of Extra, Trebor, Airwaves and Polo each suffering value and volume losses. Mentos was the only exception, though a volume sales growth of 0.4% didn't manage to keep value out of the red at -1.5%.

The sweets category has had a strong year with value sales growth of 4.3%, outpacing total fmcg by 0.9 percentage points but failing to outperform chocolate and total confectionery. 

This year sweets' performance painted a similar picture to chocolate's. Price was the key performance driver, increasing by 3.7% on shopper volume purchases up 0.7%. 

Share of on-promotion spending for sweets declined this year by 4.6 percentage points, a much heavier decline than chocolate, whereas volume deal promotions gained share by 0.3 percentage points. The main driver of the slight increase in such promotions was Morrisons, whose volume deal share of sweets increased by 0.8 percentage points this year. 

Own label, meanwhile, is bolting ahead of brands, experiencing growth rates of 11.3% compared with 2.4% for branded sweets. Among brands, Swizzels Matlow and Perfetti Van Melle came out on top with 17.2% and 14.4% growth respectively.

Shoppers are still going for healthier options with sugar-free and reduced-sugar sweets drawing in new shoppers. Perfetti Van Melle is the only manufacturer to experience triple-digit growth in sugar-free candy with its Smint and sugar-free variant Chupa Chups ranges.

Rachel Woolf, Kantar Worldpanel