The crisps and snack foods industry saw a 4.4% market growth in 2019, according to The Grocer’s latest Top Products Survey.
Despite the overall market sales volumes being more or less stagnant, some brands have seen positive growth.
Luxury and ‘big flavour’ brands have been instrumental to the market’s success.
Strong, daring flavours offering an exotic taste sensation have performed the best. This appears to be the key factor when attracting new types of customers.
There has also been a 5.9% surge in own label brands from major retailers. This follows a general trend of own label brand success in recent years.
Walkers Crisps are yet again firmly rooted as the best selling brand in 2019
Although the overall market sales volume is relatively flat, a few brands have bucked the trend with unique approaches to challenge the status quo.
Generally, companies that offer a luxury experience and bold flavour choices have performed better and accumulate more revenue, due to higher price points.
This is a similar phenomenon to the beer industry, where craft beers with interesting and exotic flavours have attracted new customer segments.
PepsiCo’s Walkers Sensations has seen a £10 million growth – a 8.9% increase on the previous year. But traditional Walkers brand crisps suffered a -4.8% decline.
Doritos Collisions, also from PepsiCo, has amassed £6 million in sales from its launch in 2018 – a respectable 8.1% increase.
Pringles from Kellogg’s was the third biggest-selling crisps brand in 2019 and has generated 12.6% growth from the previous year. The Rice Fusion range has solidified Pringles in the market after the company’s poor 2017 performance.
Walkers Oven Baked, Hula Hoops, Jacob’s Mini Cheddars, and Seabrook Crisps have also achieved positive growth. But there have been losses for PepsiCo Sunbites, Tyrrells, and Kettle Chips.
50% of people in the UK feel that healthy ingredients are important when snacking.
People still want to snack, but they want to do this in a healthy way. Low-fat and low-calorie alternatives should continue to perform well over the coming years.
Walkers Oven Baked, for example, has grown 20.4%, partly due to its low-fat offering and associated advertising.
Eco-friendly initiatives such as reduced plastic and packaging is also of growing importance to consumers.
Hoola Hoops is just one example of a brand that has reacted positively to consumer environmental concerns. Parent company KP Snacks has reduced its multi-pack packaging by 23%.
Another promising example is the Two Farmers brand, which introduced the UK’s first fully composable crisps packaging.
Walkers not only produce the best selling crisp brands, but are also creators to several of the UK’s favourite flavours. According to a survey conducted by YouGov, the public’s highest rated UK crisp flavours are as follows:
(Source: YouGov)
There’s plenty more data on the best selling brands in the UK from the past year. For the latest data, make sure to catch up with the Smylies report on 2020’s biggest UK brands.
At Smylies, we sell a comprehensive, high-quality range of best-selling UK crisp brands, all available for international export. What’s more, we are delighted to offer our own label brand of crisps that come in 9 flavours ready for global shipping. Learn more about The King’s Deli range – our award winning, hand cooked, gluten free crisps.
Our online export shop has hundreds of varieties of crisps, snacks and nuts.
We provide speedy, reliable delivery to countries all over the world.
Our online shop allows users to quickly search by brand name and by product category, including groceries, frozen foods, baby items, health and beauty, etc.
We accept all major payment methods and process these safely and securely.
Choose one of the leading UK export companies.
Phone: 0151 653 3335
Email: sales@smylies.com
Unit 7 Riverview Business Park, Riverview Road, Bromborough, Wirral, CH62 3RR
