Minis
Are King
Bite-size, king-size candies
carrying the confection category
By Steve Dwyer
I
n the retail world, middle-tier
product varieties can often get
pinched at the flanks—the victim of sales declines coming at the expense
of smaller and larger brand counterparts.
Welcome to the world of the standardsize 1.55-ounce candy variety, a longtime
driver of chocolate impulse sales.
Standard-size bars have endured a performance trend line of flat to negative sales
due to the rampant popularity of mini/
bite-size brands across all channels. At
the other end of the spectrum is the sales
increase in king-size bars.
Ask Jared Scheeler, director of retail
operations for Minneapolis-based Bobby
& Steve’s Auto World, about the middle
muddle. Dollar sales for 1.55-ounce chocolate bars plummeted 9.8% in his eight Twin
Cities stores throughout 2013.
“For 2014, everything we hear is that
primary innovation in confection will
continue to revolve around mini/bite-size
product development,” says Scheeler. “York
Peppermint Minis [from Hershey] and
Milky Way Caramels [from Mars] are the
next two brand extensions we’re anticipating. Separately, over the past six months
king-size-bar sales doubled in our stores.
Where the new rollouts stop, I don’t know.”
The growth of mini and bite-size
brands in resealable, shareable standup
pouches is undeniably strong—and is only
expected to sustain that trajectory in 2014.
Bite sizes have grown four times faster than
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G Whiz: Mars has increased its marketing
and media spending for mini and bitesize brands, including an extension of the
Snickers Bites Kenny G TV spots.
the total chocolate category over the past
four years, according to Mars Chocolate
North America category research. From
2009 through 2012, these offers grew dollar
sales 80%, or close to $700 million, according to stats from IRI provided by Mars.
“The first thing that comes to my
mind is, ‘Honey, who shrunk the chocolate bar?’ ” says Marcia Mogelensky,
director of insights, food & drink for Chicago-based Mintel Research. “Consumers buy mini candy to ostensibly share,
and to exercise some portion control for
their own good. In the long run, people
perceive bite sizes as more economical
than king or regular sizes, and it’s about
making it last longer.”
Health is also a factor. “It seems like
there’s an unofficial ‘250-calorie cutoff ’
principle by manufacturers,” she says. “I
think this has led to some attrition for
larger-size varieties under the rubric of
better-for-you snacking.”
From a health perspective, 1.55-ounce
bars are tantamount to 64-ounce fountain
drinks in the context of perpetuating the
conversation about child and teen obesity,
Mogelensky says. “In the eyes of young
mothers, the front-end supermarket and
c-store are becoming a dangerous space
as the ‘child obesity police’ cracks down,”
she says.
King-size candies don’t necessarily fall
prey to this: The packages possess a duality
of single and saveable consumption on one
hand, and shareable on the other hand—all
depending on the occasion, Scheeler says,
based on customer experience.
Mini Larceny
King-Size Candy: Good Theater
While the 3.5-ounce king-size chocolate bars have experienced a banner half-year
across almost all retail channels, the 6- to 7.5-ounce theater box has seen mixed
reviews.
They are both hefty sizes, but with different narratives to tell. Certainly, theater
boxes are a slam-dunk at the movies, as well as club stores and mass and drug
channels. The c-store—due to space limitations—has never been a domain for
significant theater-box merchandising, even though some retailers might have
thrived with it thanks to merchandising commitments.
This offer in the c-store has been pushed further to the margins with the
onslaught of mini and bite-site confections. Hershey Consumer Insights show that
the sales velocity of theater boxes is far different from that of both peg bags and
resealable pouches.
“The theater-box trends we’re seeing are the result of changes in retail space
allocation,” says Mark McCormick, senior director of pack types for The Hershey
Co., Hershey, Pa. “Across most channels, theater box remains a stable pack type,
but there have been some declines in the convenience channel, which likely reduced
space for this pack type in favor of higher-velocity and more profitable pack types.
But theater-box changes don’t appear to be related to any one specific pack type.”
At Bobby & Steve’s Auto World stores around Minneapolis, customers don’t
have a pricing dilemma selecting king-size bars vs. mini bags. That’s because king
and sharing-size bags have identical price points: $1.89.
“Our purchasing costs for both types are exactly the same,” says Jared Scheeler,
director of retail operations for Bobby & Steve’s.
That’s not all that’s similar: As of mid-December, the chain’s eight stores had
registered $6,800 in sales of Kit Kat King Size and $5,800 in sales for Kit Kat Mini
Bags since the beginning of 2013. The difference is that minis have been promoted
extensively with shippers and floor displays, according to Scheeler.
Interestingly, some consumers, says Scheeler, perceive bags of minis—with
approximately 15 pieces or more—and king-size bars with eight break-off pieces
as similar value propositions. “With a 3.5-ounce king-size bar, some people have
no problem breaking off sections to share at once or repackage for later,” he says.
“The one compelling value proposition to bites and minis is that it’s a very ‘clean
consumption,’ with no mess with melting chocolate.”
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Even though the specter of cannibalization
looms with the advent of true innovation
across the bite-size segment, there’s a mixed
bag of opinions on the breadth and depth
of the so-called “steal.”
Steve Jones, president of Johnny Junxions, a single store in Bedford, Ind., says
brand size variations “may help incrementally increase sales, but often the unknown
is whether or not it really is an increase in
sales or if the consumer just purchased a
different form of the same product from
the same company.”
Mars sees incremental sales being generated as the brand portfolio net widens.
New users are coming out of the woodwork thanks to minis.
“As with most new-item launches, there
will always be some steal. That said, we
gleaned insights from shopper-card data
from a major U.S. retailer that shows the
Snickers Bites and Milky Way Bites have
brought in new, light and lapsed users into
the chocolate category,” says Larry Lupo,
vice president of sales, convenience & drug
channels for Hackettstown, N.J.-based
Mars Chocolate North America.
For example, among shoppers who
purchased Snickers Bites and Milky Way
Bites, 37% were new to the chocolate category and 37% had not purchased chocolate
in the prior six months.
“The new Snickers Bites and Milky Way
Bites have been selling well in c-stores, in
addition to the existing Snickers Bar and
Milky Way Bar Singles and Sharing Size Bar
offerings,” Lupo says.
Some believe a growing number of people are learning to gravitate back and forth
across pack sizes based on occasion fulfillment. “The middle chocolate tier is getting
squeezed, but that could change with the
marketing approach. Because, let’s face
it, the 18- to 24-year-old male—the core
“
The first thing that comes to my mind is,
‘Honey, who shrunk the chocolate bar?’
c-store customer for so long—is always
going to want their hunk of chocolate.
When someone really needs a chocolate
bar, they need one,” says Mogelensky of
Mintel. She believes decisions won’t come
down to a case of either/or but both.
Cannibalization is more realistic, she
says, when innovation comes in the form
of a major formulation change within a
brand. An example is Jolly Rancher Soft
Chewy Bites and Jolly Rancher Sours
Chewy Bites, available in 10-ounce resealable pouches. “It’s one thing to migrate
back and forth from a Kit Kat bar to Kit
Kat Bites, but a user of Jolly Rancher who
switched to the chewy bites may not return
to the hard candy version because they
have that Jolly Rancher taste profile they
prefer—in the chewy formulation,” says
Mogelensky.
More Innovation to Come
With all the innovation that’s been
squeezed from the mini/bite-size segment
to this point, it is “still developing,” according to Mark McCormick, senior director of
pack types for The Hershey Co., Hershey,
Pa., who says the organization expects
the segment’s growth to “remain strong
in 2014 and beyond,” spearheaded by the
York Minis launch.
“Consumers shop different channels
for different reasons, and the key driver of
choosing the best pack types is the shop-
”
per’s purpose for each shopping trip,”
says McCormick. “Through knowledge,
insights and innovative store simulations,
we are strategic partners and advisers to
our customers, which helps grow the category.”
In 2014, Mars plans a substantial
increase in marketing and media spending, including its “Kenny G” TV spots for
Snickers Bites.
Scheeler of Bobby & Steve’s Auto World
believes it’s been a yearlong constant by
suppliers to provide stellar marketing support behind the mini confections.
“These offerings have energized the
category, and promotional efforts led the
charge,” he says. n
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