Surge in ‘take home’ drinks sales is good news for brand and category managers

March 23, 2011 - PRLog -- A recent report has indicated that sales of ‘take home’ drinks such as those regularly bought in multipacks from supermarkets have grown impressively over the past year. Considering the recent economic climate and the ensuing surge of price-led promotions by multiple retailers such as Tesco and Asda, there is also good news for brand managers:  in a market that has been exceptionally price-sensitive, brands are holding their own. Category managers and brand managers will be particularly interested with some of the changes highlighted by the Britvic Soft Drinks report.

The report has been compiled using data from CGA and Nielsen, two agencies with whom most category managers will be more than familiar, and underlines changes in all forms of soft drink consumption, both ‘on trade’ and take home.

The ‘take home’ category as a whole grew largely as a result of the cola sector which grew 9% to account for £1.5 billion in sales, an increase that was bolstered by an impressive growth in sales by the market leader, Coca Cola, which accounted for just over £1 billion of these sales.

Other key growth was seen in the glucose and stimulant sub-category, which grew 19%. There has been noticeable growth in this category over the past few years with new brands such as Monster and Gatorade competing for shelf space with the more traditional brands.  There has also been brand extension within existing brands, for example, Red Bull have launched a larger size can as well as small ‘shot’ sized bottles. The leader in this sector – within the take home category, at least – is Lucozade, which has sales of some £370 million.

With the slow and steady economic recovery likely to stimulate consumer spending, companies will no doubt be placing a premium on the work of their brand managers and category managers over the coming months. Indeed, only recently Essex-based Britvic were seen to be advertising a Category Manager job, overseeing their Take Home category. Marketing recruitment agency Brand Recruitment have also noticed a surge in the number of brand manager jobs and category manager jobs across their region which includes Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. “With clusters of FMCG companies around Milton Keynes, St Albans, Northampton, Peterborough and along the A1/M1 corridor, as well as slightly more isolated locations such as Norwich and Chelmsford, there has certainly been a rise in the number of companies recruiting for both brand and category managers,” reports Alex Carter, who heads up Brand’s FMCG division, “Compared with the state of the market some two years ago, there are definitely more jobs out there in these disciplines. It is also interesting to note that  NPD and innovation skills are also massively in demand – a sure sign that businesses are looking to expand.”

To find out more about Brand Recruitment’s range of category manager jobs, please go to http://www.brandrecruitment.co.uk/jobs/show/5/Category-and-Insight-Jobs

If you wish to see the agency’s range of brand manager jobs, please go to http://www.brandrecruitment.co.uk/jobs/show/2/Product-and-Brand-Manager-Jobs

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Brand are the only specialist PR and Marketing recruitment firm in the Eastern Region. With the widest variety of marketing jobs in the area, we work with clients ranging from boutique marketing agencies to global FMCG giants.