Friesland Campina UK is to make its first foray into the yoghurt smoothie drink category with an extension of its Yazoo milkshake brand.

Yazoo Yoghurt smoothies launch next month with national listings at The Co-operative Group, Tesco and Morrisons confirmed and other retailers to follow.

The product is a smoothly blended mix of yoghurt, fruit and oats, and eschews fruit ‘bits’ in order to give it as wide an appeal as possible to children and adults. It will hit chilled smoothie aisles in 750ml cartons and 3x200ml multipacks (rsp: £1.85-£2.00 and £1.90 respectively) and come in strawberry & raspberry and mango & pineapple.

The launch will be supported by a £6m campaign consisting of TV and radio ads, online and in-store promotions and sampling activity.

It was the largest piece of NPD to be undertaken by Yazoo in over 20 years and had been in development for over two years, said Friesland Campina UK MD Tracey Barney. “The Yazoo brand lends itself to a family environment, and it is important for us that the product stretches the brand into a new category.”

Yazoo aims to drive growth in smoothies by 15% to £160m in the next three years as a result of the launch, pushing the smoothie as a natural source of fuel and goodness.

Yazoo currently sits in second place behind market leader Frijj in the £248.9m flavoured dairy drinks category, with value sales of £47.8m, a value share of 19.21%, and a volume share of 21.97% [IRI total market 52 w/e 21 June 14].