Mondelez International has launched gum products in three European markets in a bid to boost flagging sales.
The snacks group, which owns the Trident gum brand, is to roll out new products in France, Spain and Greece, countries it describes as “key markets” for gum.
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CFO David Brearton said Mondelez planned to launch a gum line called 40 Minutes in France and Spain and a product called Twist in Greece.
News of the new products came after Mondelez admitted its gum and candy sales fell 1% in the three months to the end of September. Sales across the category increased 4%, it said.
Brearton said Mondelez’s gum sales were down “sharply” in France, Spain and Greece. “How are we responding? We’re driving innovation,” he told analysts after Mondelez reported its third-quarter results last week. “In France and Spain, we’re introducing 40 Minutes, a new gum that promises extra-long freshness. And in Greece, we’re launching Twist, which is similar to Stride ID in the US. We’re making it easier for consumers at the point of buying, including resetting our hot zones in nearly 30,000 outlets and expanding our offerings across a full range of price points.”
Mondelez chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld said the company’s “key challenge” within its gum and candy business was gum. Third-quarter sales of Trident fell by “low-single digits”, she said, despite growth in emerging markets. “Although the brand grew in developing markets, it was more than offset by weakness in developed markets,” she said.
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By GlobalData“To be frank, gum has been disappointing for quite some time, and it’s taking us longer to change the trajectory than we anticipated. We have, however, taken a number of steps to fix our performance, and we expect to see gradual improvement over the next year.”
Officials at Mondelez could not be reached for immediate further comment at the time of writing.
