honey monster puffs less sugar

Halo Foods is throwing down the gauntlet to Kellogg’s in the race to slash sugar in breakfast cereals, with sugar in Honey Monster Puffs to be cut by a further 25% .

The reduction will take the product’s sugar content down from 29% to 22% - or 6.6g per 30g serving. Honey Monster Puffs will now have less than half the sugar once found in its previous incarnation, Sugar Puffs.

Last week, The Grocer revealed Kellogg’s plan to reduce the sugar content of Coco Pops and Frosties by an unspecified amount, after the two brands lost £5.8m of sales between them last year [IRI 52 w/e 5 December 2015]. Coco Pops currently has 35% sugar ­content, while Frosties has 37%.

Sugar Puffs had been in decline for several years when Halo announced in October 2014 the cereal would be rebranded and reformulated. Since then, sales have continued to fall, partly as a result of secondary products being withdrawn in order to concentrate on the main variant. The brand is down 22.7% to £10.5m in the latest data [IRI 52 w/e 2 January 2016], but Halo said the rebrand had started to show results, with sales in the final 12 weeks of the year up 10.3%. “We are incredibly proud of the fact we have reduced sugar levels in Honey Monster Puffs by more than 50% in the past decade,” said Andy Valentine, marketing director at Halo Foods.

“This is a significant achievement and just goes to show that steady reformulation can be achieved without compromising taste or flavour. We’ve made great progress already, but we’re not stopping here.”

The reformulated Honey Monster Puffs will be promoted through a sampling campaign, which aims to reach one million people, and advertising including a TV run from May.

The Honey Monster brand will also see a number of NPD beginning in the second half of 2016. The flagship product’s 22% sugar content would be an “upper limit” for the brand, said Valentine, with other lines having either the same or a lower level.

Sugar in breakfast cereal products has been a growing focus recently. Along with Kellogg’s, Waitrose said last week it would slash the sugar in its own-label cereals, stripping out two tonnes a year - equivalent to 7.5 million calories. Halo Foods itself also relaunched its Good Grain Puffed Wheat last week, flagging up the brand’s low sugar content on pack.

This week, the World Health Organisation joined health campaigners such as Action on Sugar in calling for a sugar tax to fight childhood obesity. The Department of Health is expected to make an announcement next month on its long-awaited childhood obesity strategy.