Over the last few years, the Ukrainian market has been changing under the influence of current trends towards a healthy lifestyle. Healthy breakfasts and snacks, which include granola and cereal bars, are coming into fashion.
Granola is a subspecies of breakfast cereal. It is consumed by adults and children, adherents of a healthy lifestyle and sweets. Granola is made from whole grain flakes baked in honey or syrup. Superfoods like nuts, dried fruits, and seeds are added to granola. Many manufacturers produce lines of snacks and bars containing granola – convenient for a quick snack.
According to a Nielsen retail audit, sales of breakfast cereals in the country have grown to 32.8% over the past two years, making the opportunity to create and develop a domestic brand attractive. The muesli and granola category is the most growing segment, with sales up 62% in monetary terms and 37.3% in volume terms. Based on the positive dynamics of sales growth and popularity among the Ukrainian population, this direction is considered the most promising in the breakfast cereals market.
What do you need to know when building a brand on granola and granola bars?
Granola and granola bars: trends and development trends
Today every seventh Ukrainian prefers breakfast cereals to classic cooked food. The market is overflowing with offerings for oatmeal, cornflakes, granola, shaped breakfasts, and granola is just starting to gain popularity.
Oatmeal in the morning seems too bland for most consumers. Muesli performs better as a healthy breakfast or snack, but is inferior to granola in terms of flavor and nutritional value. The caloric content of granola is high – 442 kCal per 100 grams.
Ukrainians use granola in bulk and pressed into bars as quick breakfasts and light dinners, between meals and workouts in the gym, on hikes and trips, instead of cookies for tea or coffee. Dozens of different superfoods – from chia and dried cranberries to chocolate and almond shavings – are added to cereal baked in syrup or honey. Therefore, each buyer will be able to find exactly his favorite flavor.
There are few domestic products on the Ukrainian market – the leading positions are occupied by imported brands Nestle and Lantmännen – in terms of variety of flavors and quality characteristics. For Nestle it is 36% market share, for Lantmännen it is 26%.
The popularity of imported is due to the residual distrust of consumers in Ukrainian brands and the lack of diversity of offers of domestic manufacturers. Nevertheless, over the last year Ukrainian producers have become more active, and gradually products capable of competing with imported analogs appear on store shelves.
Read also: Dried snacks: Market Size and Producers in Ukraine
Up-to-date market research can be ordered from KOLORO
How profitable is it to invest in creating a Ukrainian brand of granola and bars “bio”, “eco” or “gluten free”? As we mentioned above, the market is embraced by healthy lifestyle trends. Therefore, the answer is unequivocally beneficial.
The basic rule: when a brand satisfies basic consumer needs, the resources invested in it pay off.
Who buys granola and granola bars: consumer portrait
While breakfast cereals and granola are popular with both children and adults, granola is more specialized at this point. Let’s take a look at the most striking portraits of consumers.
Portrait #1: Girls in their 20s. Students and young professionals. Choose granola over oatmeal, granola, and fitness cereal. Passionate about fitness, instagram, easy to fall for new trends, believe in the usefulness of advertised products.
Portrait #2: Women 20-45 years old. The income is average to moderate plus. Watch their health and figure, lead an active lifestyle. Prefer natural and wholesome products. Tend to compare product formulations when choosing products, focusing on their tastes rather than trends. Strive to diversify their diets. Often time constrained, so they want to make the cooking process simple, quick and rewarding.
Buying situation: supermarkets and specialty stores, less often cafes where they make their own.
Consumption situation: eaten for breakfast with milk, kefir or yogurt, snack on dry throughout the day.
Product Disadvantages:
● Low usefulness contrary to advertising companies because cheap packages contain a lot of sugar.
● Not convenient to eat loose, the format pressed into snacks or bars is more in demand.
Focusing on the shortcomings, the following consumer demands can be derived:
- A honey-based product at an affordable cost. Sugar granola is much cheaper than honey granola (2-3 times difference). A nice price can be gambled on.
- Granola in cookie or snack format, pressed with superfoods. Figs, cranberries, chia, exotic fruits and berries – the more vitaminized the filling, the greater the demand for the product is expected to be.
- Granola in a To Go format, such as granola in a glass with a spoon or granola with a spoon and yogurt in a separate container that can be mixed and eaten on the go.
Granola and granola bars: market and competitor analysis
When building a brand, market analysis is a must. We have prepared data on the three leading brands of granola and granola bars on the shelves of Ukrainian stores.
Sante
Sante claim to be a leader in the healthy food segment in Poland and an expert in the field of functional nutrition. The company’s mission is to popularize a healthy lifestyle, especially a healthy and balanced diet.
Have the highest traffic among the other competitors with 130,000 views per month. Actively lead social networks, maximum number of likes on Facebook – up to 400 .
Good Morning, Granola (GMG)
Position themselves as a breakfast and energy boosting product before or in the middle of the work day. Slogan: “Sneedanok for those who work with their heads”. The brand is a pioneer on the Ukrainian market, so the communication includes a lot of education about the benefits of the product, the way of consumption, history, etc.
Traffic to the official website and social media is low, despite a lot of interesting content.
Lantmannen Axa
“Lantmannen Aksa is part of the Scandinavian food group Lantmannen, whose products are sold in 45 countries. Lantmannen ‘s annual turnover is more than $3 billion. Lantmannen is involved in many environmental initiatives, including the transition to natural energy sources, the development of agro-culture of the future, and the production of new types of healthy food.
Official site traffic information is not tracked. The company actively advertises and interacts with the audience through social media, with an official Facebook public Facebook page liked by 29,868 people. Earlier we launched a charity project with Metro.
Summary of granola market and competitor analysis:
- Sante has a nice website that shows that the company is a flagship for healthy eating.
- Good Morning, Granola (GMG) is a strong competitor from a marketing standpoint, sets trends in the segment, but is too small a company. The website builder incorporates game mechanics, the content is immersive and makes you want to purchase products.
- Axa is active in marketing and social media, and is involved in charity work in Ukraine.
Let’s summarize
Granola and granola snacks – cookies, bars – is a niche in the Ukrainian market, which is just beginning to develop. Want to build a brand and become leaders in your segment?
Get a free consultation with the experts at COLORO right now.
