It is a train that seems unstoppable. Chocolate wafers, chocolate chip cookies, stuffed hippo heads: one by one, new Kinder products arrive in supermarkets. The Ferrero group brand has abandoned its bastion of chocolate confectionery to invade the cookie aisle. And it’s a winner: in France, Kinder almost automatically enters the annual top 10 of the best mass distribution releases established by panelist NielsenIQ.
Kinder Cards cookies (first place in 2020), Kinder Happy Hippo (seventh place in 2021), Kinder Duo (fourth place in 2022) and Kinder Tronky (sixth place in 2023) have been the best sellers in their respective years.
Rebelote in 2024: the newborns Kinderini and Kinder Crunchy Cookies rose to second and eighth place on the charts. “This is the attacking power of the Ferrero group, very effective, with massive and aggressive launch plans,” says Hugo Le Taillendier, analytical director of NielsenIQ, referring to a “virtuous circle” for the brand. Distributors do not hesitate to announce new products.
Compete with the giant Mondelez
The Italian group has embarked on a frenetic conquest of new markets, giving a clear boost to its innovation process: the other flagship of the transalpine company, the Nutella cream, has also entered the battle. In this context, “biscuits are a strategic priority for the company”, which sees “a colossal opportunity”, confirms Loïc Lallier, director of trade marketing at Ferrero France.
The acquisition of Belgian manufacturer Delacre in 2016 boosted a segmentation strategy that was already underway. Ferrero now has a 12% market share in France in biscuits with its Kinder, Nutella and Delacre brands.
Kinder Cards cookies led the convoy. According to NielsenIQ, between September 2023 and September 2024, 43.1 million euros were sold, or 4.6% of Kinder’s turnover in France. This places them at the same level as certain historical brands such as Kinder Chocolat bars or Kinder Délice cakes. Altogether, sales of Kinder’s latest innovations amounted to €118.3 million during the same period, or 12.6% of French turnover.
Because the brand has also tackled ice cream: after a first attempt in collaboration with Unilever, it relaunched (successfully) Kinder Bueno ice cream in 2022 and Kinder Chocolat in 2023, this time produced by a Spanish manufacturer, Ice Cream Factory Comaker (ICFC ). , which fell into the hands of Ferrero in 2019.
As with the cookies, the Kinder recipe has not changed: a common core of chocolate and milk, as well as a red and white wrapper immediately recognizable to its followers, without forgetting a large amount of sugar, which probably explains the absence of any trace of the Nutri-Score logo (which would turn red) on the packaging.
“It is always Kindergarten who wins”
“The French say they want healthier products but, in the end, Kinder always wins,” emphasizes Sophie de Reynal, marketing director of the Nutrimarketing consultancy, highlighting its “intergenerational” nature. “Parents today grew up with Kinder products and now buy them for their children,” he says.
Even the thorny issue of Kinder products contaminated with salmonella in spring 2022, which caused serious shocks in Europe in the middle of Easter, has not really compromised the appeal of the brand.
As an exception, CéréAlé breakfast biscuits missed their release. Emerged in 2021, they are fighting to position themselves between the leader Belvita (a brand from the Mondelez group) and the private label brands, very present in this category, and have lost visibility on the shelves. According to data from NielsenIQ, sales only increased to 3.5 million euros in the period between September 2023 and September 2024, compared to 8.7 million euros in the same period two years earlier.
More specifically, it is not enough to put the Kinder brand on the packaging for the product to work. Ferrero is quietly testing its innovations in the field before considering a full-scale launch, in France or elsewhere. In spring 2022, chocolate bars labeled “Kinder Chocotab” appeared in some supermarkets in Angers. Since then, there is no news. “These tests did not live up to our ambitions,” admits Loïc Lallier. But, buoyed by the success of its ice cream and cookies, Kinder is already looking at other categories.
Source: BFM TV
