United Biscuits is unifying its portfolio of savoury crackers under the Jacob’s “master brand” and launching a fresh drive to increase relevance and deliver incremental category growth.

The company is bringing its crackers, crispbreads and flatbreads as well as brands including Mini Cheddars, Oddities and Twiglets under the Jacob’s umbrella. The move follows a similar initiative earlier this year to unify the group’s sweet biscuit offering under the McVitie’s master brand.

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Speaking to just-food at a launch event yesterday (1 April), marketing controller Nick Wizard said the company hoped the heritage of the Jacob’s brand would augment the appeal of established names such as Mini Cheddars.

“Consumers don’t talk about McVitie’s and Jacob’s necessarily – they talk about the brands. Mini Cheddars has real strength in the brand Mini Cheddars. We are not changing the fundamental look and feel. It’s more about the importing that brand that Jacob’s has, putting all of the heritage and all of their credentials together,” Wizard explained.

The company also needs to evolve the way consumers view Jacob’s, he added. “The idea was to get a brand like Jacob’s, which has been making cream crackers since 1885, to get people to see it as more than that one product. It’s about opening people’s eyes up to the range that we have.”

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United Biscuits is launching a GBP10m (US$16.6m) advertising campaign that will highlight three Jacob’s products: Jacob’s Crispbreads, Mini Cheddars and Oddities.

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The company plans to drive category growth by focusing on its “core” cracker range as well as growth areas such as bagged snacks.

Wizard said: “We absolutely want to drive the category. The market at the moment is up 5-6%. It is split into two halves, the traditional cracker is up 1%, but that is 70% of the market. The new snacking formats like Oddities – bagged snacks – that area is more in emergence.

“What we want to do is make sure that we are driving relevance for the core part of the category, which is where we are bringing in new NPD like Jacob’s Crispbread to try and broaden the occasion, make products more portable and unlock some potential especially around lunchtime… Oddities is still really a toddler if anything, it’s got the potential to go so much further. It is really about driving that awareness and it is one of the three brands we are supporting. Its a fantastic proposition.”

For more on UB’s strategy to grow UK sales and profits, check out just-food’s recent interview with UK MD Jon Eggleton.