Primola moves to economy

The low purchasing power of the consumers has made more and more chocolate makers move to the “economy” market segment. After having challenged the middle-to-premium segment with Primola, Supreme Chocolats has entered the chocolate tablet market with Novatini, which it hopes would help it gain 15% of this segment by yearend. Chocolate tablets are low cocoa mass products and therefore may not be called chocolate. “This release is part of our strategy to broaden our portfolio. The results of the market surveys highlighted the possibility to launch a new brand on the “economy” segment controlled by Africana and Laura and provided us with the directions to develop this new brand,” Cristian Stancu, Supreme Chocolats marketing manager said. Supreme says it is investing 500,000 euros in the launch of Novatini. The main tablet segment players are Excelent with Laura and Kraft with Africana. “No chocolate producer usually relies on only one segment, especially not on the premium, at least not in Romania where the market is not big enough,” said Anca Ioan, senior partner of Roland Berger and Partners consultancy. ZF