We hear from Chris Terry, sales director UK of Glanbia
How has Glanbia helped wholesalers grow sales in the past 12 months?
Glanbia has started working with selected wholesale partners to showcase what can be achieved with a price-marked multiformat tiered range.
We are just three months into our partnership with Unitas and have already shown phenomenal results through Dhamecha in particular, with the launch of our price-marked protein snack range.
What is the greatest challenge the wholesale industry faces?
Pricing around healthier and protein snacks remains a challenge when a consumer can often see varied pricing at the gym, supermarket and convenience stores.
There is a real opportunity for wholesalers that remove this barrier by offering clearly marked price-marked packs to their retail customers.
What trends and opportunities are emerging that wholesalers can take
advantage of?
Recent research shows that 20 million adults in the UK have eaten a healthy snack in the past week and that more than 60% are looking for products with added protein.
Wholesalers can cash in on this high-margin opportunity by helping their retailers build a multiformat protein snack range to meet more consumer needs.
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What is Glanbia’s greatest achievement in the past year?
Anyone in the fitness and gym space will know about our leading brand, Optimum Nutrition, which has long been recognised as the world’s best-selling and most trusted whey protein powder.
I believe our biggest achievement in 2019 was to successfully leverage this experience and heritage to create a range of credible high-protein snack formats specifically designed with cash and carry customers
in mind.
We are extremely proud of our snacking range in particular, which was a key part of England Rugby’s journey in Japan last year, and we recently won Product of the Year 2020 for our Optimum Bar in the Health and Nutrition category.
Also, although we are still at the early stages of our rollout, the response from Dhamecha Cash and Carry and other wholesalers has been hugely positive, with a very strong rate of sale and repeat purchase.
What would you like to see happen in wholesale in the next 12 months?
We believe there is a significant opportunity for wholesalers to build very profitable healthy snacking categories with protein snacks being a key driver. It’s time to think beyond more flavour extensions on the same old bars and build a multiformat range that will bring more consumers into the category and drive more sales and profits for retailers and wholesalers.
We believe that more whole-salers should embrace the opportunity, so please get
in touch and let us help you grow the category.
Are you planning any activity wholesalers should be aware of?
We will be working with Unitas as the first category champion for this emerging space and will be providing insight and merchandising tips through its Plan for Profit platform. We will also continue to work with Dhamecha.
Furthermore, we are investing heavily into a £2m marketing campaign showcasing the role Optimum Nutrition plays fuelling England Rugby performance. This will coincide with the Six Nations tournament, and will run across all digital platforms.
