Sugar Confectionery in Hungary

2020 IMPACT

Lockdown to have heavy impact on impulse purchases in 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a heavy impact on sales in 2020. Sugar confectionery is a particularly sensitive product area within overall snacks, as these products are not considered to be a necessity, with consumers likely to switch their spending to products that are considered to be healthier during times of economic uncertainty.

Haribo benefits from Halloween innovation in 2020

The fairly fragmented category of sugar confectionery continued to be led by multinational players led by Haribo, Mondelez with Negro and Halls medicated confectionery and Ferrero Magyarország with its popular Tic Tac brand.

Coca-Cola and Tic Tac team up

Tic Tac, the second largest sugar confectionery brand in terms of retail value, continues to push boundaries. As part of a global limited edition roll out, Tic Tac partnered with Coca-Cola.

RECOVERY AND OPPORTUNITIES

Rising health awareness amplified by COVID-19 in the forecast period

The rising health awareness in the country, in addition to the public health tax on sugar confectionery deemed too high in sugar, is encouraging players to offer an increasing number of products with reduced sugar or sugar free content. This is not only as a way to avoid having extra tax added to the retail price which can impact sales amongst lower-income consumers and may push them to choose healthier snack options outside of the category such as dried fruit, but also to appease the concerns of parents who are more likely to choose reduced sugar variants for their children.

The more sugarised sugar confectionery is losing display space at the cashier point

Further rise of self-checkouts in modern groceries retailers will result in less display space at cashier zones in the forecast period and is bad news for sugar confectionery in general, but particularly for highly sugarised products. The trend is for the shrinking display area at the cashier to be reserved for healthier snacks.

An opportunity to push e-commerce in the forecast period

As shelf displays at the cashier point declines for sugar confectionery, due to a trend for healthier product displays, there is an opportunity for manufacturers to focus on e-commerce. Pre-COVID-19, sugar confectionery was seen as a category with limited opportunities to expand in e-commerce due to the importance of impulsive ‘on the spot’ purchases.