Sweet and sour

The National Confectioners Association has just released its inaugural benchmarking report, How America Shops for Candy and Snacks, and with it comes a blueprint for supermarket retailers to add to the bottom line.

A high proportion of consumers crave their daily feed of candy and snacks. That consumption regularity is hard for other departments to match, but it sets forth a performance challenge for retailers and manufacturers. Despite multiple areas of the store devoted to candy and snacks, impressive seasonal displays, lots of innovation, and more, consumers aren't universally happy with the trade's efforts. This study uncovers some levels of shopper dissatisfaction—and helps point the way to constructive improvement.

Supermarkets are the dominant source for these products. Consumers gave them triple the number of mentions (61 percent) as the primary place to buy candy and snacks, compared with the big-box mass merchandiser/discount/warehouse club formats.

The most important traits of a candy and snack aisle to consumers: product freshness, accurate shelf tags, and a clean, neat shelf, each cited by a majority of respondents. Price matters, too, and this report explores many aspects of price and promotion to which shoppers respond in this part of the store.

The sour aftertaste is that consumers expressed wide-scale frustration with candy and snack assortments in their primary stores—although they were toughest in their assessment of candy.

The report pinpoints precisely where stores fall short in their offers. It also goes beyond assortment, to identify many attributes that people would like to see in the candy and snack departments where they shop. Departments scored pretty well on some of these other measures, yet there are clear opportunities for improvement.

Consumers were merciless when asked to rate candy selections in their primary store, the one they feel can satisfy them most. Among 14 segments measured, just one—holiday candies—received an excellent score from as many as one in three respondents (33 percent). Combined with its good scores, holiday candies garnered positive mentions by 82 percent of survey respondents.

Holiday gift selections, a limited niche, were rated as excellent by 23 percent of consumers, and good by 44 percent.

Rating candy and snacks

Chocolate selection was the second strongest (27 percent excellent, 54 percent good) of all candy segments, and adult candies scored third (24 percent excellent, 57 percent good), the research findings show. Gum also did reasonably well (24 percent excellent, 55 percent good) and hard candies (18 percent excellent, 59 percent good) provided some pop.

Meanwhile potato chips and salty snacks were the clear-cut winners in the snacks department, with similarly high approval ratings for their respective selections in consumers' primary supermarkets. A lofty nine out of 10 respondents rated both segments as excellent/good (90 percent potato chips, 91 percent salty snacks) in choices at the shelf.

The good news: All things considered, consumers are pretty pleased with the job their primary supermarket does to satisfy their candy needs. This measure goes beyond assortment alone to include pricing, promotion, merchandising, and the other elements that go into creating a fulfilling candy destination.

Consumer wish list

Consumers aired a broad list of improvements they'd like to see in the candy aisle of the store serving as their primary candy destination. The NCA survey allows every respondent to cite multiple concerns in this area.

What rose to the top?

• More variety/better assortment/ wider choice was named by 39 percent.

• Price/cost savings, 33 percent.

• More gourmet candies, 28 percent.

• More imported candies, 24 percent.

• More fresh-made candies, 20 percent.

While the survey doesn't explore the emotions behind candy purchases, these findings suggest palates that seek new and pleasing taste adventures. People simply want more to choose from, whether domestic, gourmet, imported, or fresh-made—and they seem to want the confidence to experiment without creasing their wallets.

Stores that carry more gourmet, imported or fresh-made candies can seize an opportunity to satisfy customers on selection—and, it would seem, concurrently to enhance their image, build volume, and improve margins through these more prestigious products.

To be sure, candy and snacks are a prominent part of the American diet. One in four consumers ate candy at least once a day, and more than one in three ate snacks this often.

Nobody said they never eat candy or snacks. While low percentages of consumers said they indulge rarely, on special occasions, or once a month, the vast majority admitted to a regular penchant for these products.

(The NCA survey was conducted using the SupermarketGuru.com consumer panel, and its findings were reported at the 2007 State of the Industry Conference on March 1, 2007.)