Instant coffee, cheeses, and air fresheners were purchased more than last year

Until 2009, there was a myth among experts in the retail and FMCG industry, based on the belief in unlimited volume growth in the FMCG market, according to GfK research.

This myth was shattered with the onset of the global crisis, when consumers accepted the reality that the crisis was indeed here and decided to stay. At that time, consumers began to change their purchasing habits in a way that will be difficult to replace with pre-crisis buying behavior even when entering a recovery phase. The era of volume growth in the FMCG market is definitely behind us. Of course, this does not apply to the growing markets of Asia and Latin America, but primarily to the highly developed markets in Europe and North America.

However, there are some product categories that defy the general trend of volume reduction and/or stagnation. The GfK Consumer Panel has been tracking real consumption in Croatian households for the past 12 years, covering about 80 groups of FMCG product categories that make up around 40% of the total value of the FMCG market. This method allows for an in-depth understanding of the consumer world, the health and perspective of various product categories and brands. Thus, analyzing changes in the first half of 2012 revealed which product categories were purchased more than in the same period in 2011.
There is no single recipe for the success of a category. But, likewise, there is no success for a category without a well-developed recipe. Category managers know this best. Some categories grow because they have managed to attract a larger number of customers, others because they have managed to make existing customers more loyal, and others cannibalize neighboring categories, etc. The ten categories that grew the most in the first half of 2012 were: instant coffee, soft and semi-hard cheeses, air fresheners, tea, cooking fats, biscuits (tea and hard), sausages, flips, and hair dyes.

Only 4 out of 10 owe part of their success to significant price reductions. However, from a business perspective, it is much more important to conclude the following: as many as 6 out of 10 categories grew in volume despite rising or stagnating prices within the category. And yes, it will not be a revelation to conclude that private labels increased their share in 6 out of 10 categories, as they are becoming increasingly accepted in our households year after year and are not even close to their organic growth limit. However, what should concern brand managers and category managers is the fact that the brand leader is losing its share in 6 out of 10 categories. And if the category captain is not the bearer of growth, the question is to what extent that growth is planned, targeted, and manageable, and to what extent it is spontaneous and unpredictable?
Even more concerning is the performance of the top 5 brands by category. In only 2 out of 10 categories did they manage to increase their share. This clearly indicates that private labels are taking a piece of the pie from them, but also somewhat unexpectedly, B brands that have increased their market share at the expense of traditionally strong brands such as Jacobs and Nescafe in instant coffee, Dukat and Vindija in soft cheeses, Podravka and Cedevita in teas, Koestlina and Kraš in biscuits, Gavrilović and Podravka in sausages, Vindija in semi-hard cheeses, Bobi and Franck in flips, L’Oreal and Palette in hair dyes.
Is a change in the balance of power on the horizon that will become a trend? Will brand leaders be able to respond to the challenge? The consumer is king, the choice is theirs. Or?