McVitie’s appears to be readying its first savoury HFSS-compliant product for launch.
Owner Pladis has applied to register “McVitie’s Grain Joy” as a trademark with the Intellectual Property Office under classes 29 and 30, covering crisps and crackers.
A Pladis spokeswoman told The Grocer: “We don’t have any news to share at this stage.
“Like all companies, as part of our planning process we trademark brand names from time to time, sometimes speculatively.”
The name ‘Grain Joy’ could point to the development of a product containing higher levels of fibre – a nutrient that contributes positively to a product’s nutrient profiling model score.
McVitie’s’ portfolio of HFSS-compliant sweet biscuits includes Digestives The Light One (formerly Wholesense) and Rich Tea The Light One (formerly Delights).
Both spin-offs contain 30% less sugar than their core counterpart, while Digestives The Light One contains 50% more fibre than the original recipe.
McVitie’s last summer expanded its Rich Tea lineup to include The Cocoa One, which is also HFSS-compliant.
Collectively, these three lines accounted for just £11.9m (1.9%) of McVitie’s’ overall retail sales value of £616.1m in the year to 31 December 2024 [NIQ].
Pladis has previously launched non-HFSS savoury products under its Jacob’s brand. It reformulated Jacob’s Crinklys to make them non-HFSS in 2023 and launched HFSS-compliant Jacob’s Bites last summer.
This month, Pladis set an ambition for 50% of its wheat requirement to be grown using regenerative agriculture practices by the end of 2027.
It sourced over 30,000 tonnes of grain grown using regenerative practices this year – enough to cover its annual wheat requirement for McVitie’s Digestives.
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