The brand is being given a £6.5m overhaul from next month, which will include new packaging for its shakes and cereal meal replacement bars and the launch of more inherently healthy products.
New products will include smoothies, wet soups and snacks that Simon Whitehead, Slim-Fast business manager at Unilever UK Foods, said would make the range more relevant to today’s
consumers.
Slim-Fast Real Fruit Smoothies (rsp £1.19 for 325ml) come in three varieties - raspberry, forest fruits and peach - packaged in a plastic bottle to appeal as a lunch or breakfast snack.
New ambient soups will also be available in three varieties - cream of chicken & mushroom, tomato & bean and chicken & vegetable (rsp: £1.29). The company is also launching Fruit & Nut bars in cranberry & almond and apricot & cashew variants and is entering into the savoury snack category for the first time with sour cream & chive pretzels and Cheddar bites.
Slim-Fast has experienced a massive drop in sales over the past few years in the US and the UK, which Unilever has attributed to the Atkins diet. While the low-carb diet has now fallen out of favour, it said that consumers had not yet been attracted back to its diet plan.
As part of the relaunch, the company is scrapping its Slim-Fast Low Cal Low Carb range, which it launched last January as an attempt to exploit the success of the Atkins diet. “Fads such as the Atkins diet have had an impact on the brand, but they have moved on,” said Whitehead. “Slim-Fast is not about fads.”
A TV campaign for the brand will kick off in May.
Patak’s is launching a £1.5m TV campaign to promote its regional sauces. The advert, which breaks on March 1, centres on Dr Krishnan describing curry withdrawal symptoms such as lack of concentration, where a barber chops away at a client’s hair without noticing the damage he is doing. The strapline reads ‘Patak’s cures your curry cravings’.
Stefan Chomka Unilever UK Foods’ ailing Slim-Fast brand is undergoing a massive relaunch in a bid to return it to its pre-Atkins diet eminence and arrest falling sales.