Celebrity-backed fmcg launches are making headlines again.
This month, singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran has unveiled an extra spicy biltong, launched under his Tingy Ted’s brand in collaboration with Ember; YouTuber Niko Omilana has launched his own sugar confectionery brand Shades; and Jack Link’s has announced it is working with controversial content maker MrBeast on a co-branded range of beef jerky, biltong and beef bars.
These developments come just one year after The Grocer reported on volume sales of Prime (the viral soft drink launched by YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI) plummeting in UK grocery. Prime was the fastest-growing food and drink brand in 2023, adding £148m in sales in the year to 31 December, according to NIQ data.
Prime’s initial popularity and limited availability prompted retailers to make huge orders of its must-have soft drinks. However, they were forced to heavily discount lines when shopper demand dropped off suddenly in early 2024.
Prime lessons learnt
Despite Prime’s cautionary tale, Sainsbury’s has shown it’s still willing to take a punt on a big name launch, having listed both Sheeran’s Xtra Tingly Biltong and Omilana’s Shades sweets this month. Perhaps retailers and suppliers, alike, have learnt valuable lessons from Prime, launching products that fill a genuine gap in the market for shoppers.
Take Xtra Tingly Biltong, for example; according to Ember co-founder Harry Mayhew, the brand had been inundated with requests from consumers to launch an “extra-spicy” version before tying up with Sheeran. Indeed, the NPD responds to a broader trend for ultra-spicy snacks, with brands like Doritos, Takis and Pringles launching increasingly fiery variants over recent months.
What’s more, the product has been launched into Sainsbury’s as a limited-edition, leveraging the idea of scarcity that catapulted early sales of Prime. Introducing a product as a limited-edition also minimises the risk factor associated with its launch. Ember, Kraft Heinz (which sells Tingly Ted’s under licence) and Sainsbury’s can use this initial period as a test-run before potentially bringing the product back on a permanent basis.
A gap in the market
Then there’s Shades, which was developed after Omilana identified a gap in the confectionery market for a mass-market brand, like Haribo, that is also halal certified. A three-minute trailer promoting the brand launch, posted across Omilana’s social channels earlier this month, depicts a young Niko vowing to “take down” a bear called ‘Harry Bowe’, who offers out sweets that are suitable for other kids but not him.
In the video, Omilana expresses an ambition to beat the bear at his own game and is subsequently arrested for “the crime of creating the world’s tastiest sweets”. Tongue-in-cheek as the trailer might be, it sets out Omilana’s huge ambition for Shades.
Haribo is the leading brand in sugar confectionery. Its value sales hit £273.1m in 2024, so taking it on is no mean feat.
However, Shades has the support of another celebrity-backed fmcg brand that has already found long-term success in that category, as it is the latest project from Tuckshop London, an investment firm launched in 2021 by Candy Kittens co-founders Jamie Laing and Ed Williams, along with Katjes managing shareholder.
Candy Kittens’ success
Laing teased the launch of Candy Kittens on the reality TV show Made in Chelsea he starred in, back in 2012. Fast-forward 13 years and Candy Kittens is worth £20.1m in grocery. It’s small fry compared with Haribo, but it looks set to overtake Starburst, whose value dipped by 3.7% to £21.1m last year [NIQ 52 w/e 7 September 2024].
What’s more, Candy Kittens’ “gourmet” flavours, pricing strategy and branding means it appeals to a millennial and “85%-90% female” audience, rather than the mass market, says Williams. Presumably, its fanbase overindexes in former MIC viewers (raises hand).
For this reason, Williams is confident Shades won’t cannibalise sales from Candy Kittens. It’s going after the mass market, in addition to Omilana’s “90% male”, predominantly Gen Z fans. This is reflected in its competitive pricing strategy: Shades 150g packs have an rsp of £1.70, which sits between Haribo Starmix 175g (£1.25 in Tesco) and Candy Kittens Wild Strawberry 140g (£2.50 in Tesco).
“With Shades, we’ve worked really, really hard to make sure this is a product you would buy with or without knowing Niko,” says Williams, who aims to support more creator-led brands through Tuckshop.
Williams identifies “authenticity” as the key to any celeb-backed brand’s long-term success. “A lot of people [content creators] are using their YouTube or their social media reach to gain some quick sales. And that’s fine, hats off to them. But my question is, how long can it last?”
With that foundation in place, Shades looks set to last on shelves. But the jury’s still out on the MrBeast branded jerky…
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