Healthy choices!

Soon Christmas will be left behind for another year and the January blues will start to set in, with thoughts turning to a more healthy lifestyle and making up for all the indulgence of the festive season. Ensure these healthy snacks, drinks and products are on your shelves to help consumers get through the winter and live the healthy lifestyle they so dearly crave

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Brand Central

Read More: healthy Weight management

Naturally delicious

LowLow’s message for 2016 is ‘Food to Feel Good About’

From the greenest Irish pastures to the kitchen table, LowLow is proud to make delicious cheese from Irish semi-skimmed milk, creamy buttery spreads made with Irish butter milk, and tasty cheese snacks that consumers can feel good about. The LowLow range is a firm favourite among Irish consumers, and is used in one in three households throughout the country.  The brand underwent a radical re-design for 2015 and is now seeing positive results. 2016 will be a very exciting year for the brand as it is now positioned for growth. January will be a big focus for LowLow and will see in-store activities with a heavyweight campaign including TV, digital and sampling. This resonates very strongly with the brand’s target consumer and is key to driving trial. See www.LowLow.ie/beauty for more details.

Q & A with…

Amanda Ryan

Amanda Ryan, LowLow’s senior brand manager for Great Britain and Ireland

As part of our focus on the healthy options out there for consumers, ShelfLife caught up with LowLow’s senior brand manager for Great Britain and Ireland, Amanda Ryan, to discuss the brand’s performance to date and plans for 2016

How has LowLow’s product portfolio performed in terms of sales and how have you managed to achieve this result?

2015 was a big year for LowLow. In September the brand underwent a radical make over, based on the insight that consumers want more natural products in both ingredients and appearance. We rebranded the whole range so it has a more natural look and feel.  Dairy credentials are also important to our core target, so we have called these out on packs. And we even launched exciting new variations, such as Emmental spreadable cheese and Sweet Chilli Snack Bites.

Packaging began to hit shelves at the end of August and was supported with new cheese and snacking TV commercial, extensive digital and a sampling campaign. The campaign focused on our cheese range and built on the claim that LowLow is naturally delicious. The relaunch has had a really positive impact on the brand, with post re-launch sales uplifts ranging from +22% on natural cheese to +86% on the cheese snacking range.

Can you tell us about your product portfolio and how each product in the range fulfils the consumer’s needs?

We are proud to make delicious dairy our consumers can feel good about. Our cheese is made from 100% natural ingredients and Irish semi-skimmed milk, so that our consumers get great taste and dairy goodness, along with 33% less fat. Our Snack Bite range consists of Caramelised Onion, Sweet Chilli, Roasted Red Pepper and Cranberry. Each pack contains five delicious mature cheese slices with wholesome multigrain toast and chutney. These are perfect for consumers who want a healthy convenient snack that is tasty and they can look forward to eat, but is still good for them. Our original spreads range allow consumers all the benefits of delicious spreadable butter, with 81% less fat. They are versatile, and can be used in spreading, baking and melting.

How have you conveyed the message to consumers that LowLow offers ‘food to feel good about’?

Food to feel good about is core to our brand’s proposition. We believe food that tastes good should also do you good. We believe in real food that is naturally full of goodness. We also believe that being healthy shouldn’t mean sacrificing either. This is at the heart of everything we do, from product development to brand communications. This really comes through in our TVCs, which hero delicious healthy hearty food, and our digital presence where we try to inspire our core target to live a life that makes them feel good. Our Facebook page content is very upbeat, optimistic, clever, and resonates with our fans.

How significantly are you investing in your marketing programme for 2016 and what will this entail?

We have a very ambitious growth plan for 2016, and are investing in a strong campaign to match this ambition. The January/February campaign will see a focus on LowLow butter spreads with a new TVC. The JanYOUary campaign will include heavyweight TV, digital and sampling campaign.  We will continue sampling throughout 2016, because we know the power of our brand is in its taste. 96% of consumers would recommend LowLow products to a friend*.

In the wake of fun Christmas festivities, January can feel bleak, dull and depressing. Funds are low, we’ve overindulged on food and drink in December and society swings into full ‘guilt’ mode. At LowLow, we don’t believe in guilt which is why quarter one of 2016 will see an exciting new on pack promotion ‘two for one’ beauty treatments with special packs of LowLow. All consumers need to do is pick up a promo pack, go to www.lowlow.ie/beauty type in their unique code, pick their salon, print off their voucher, and claim their two for one beauty treatment. 2016 will be a fantastic year for LowLow.

The company also is working on a pipeline of NPD that taps into consumer needs.

*(Source: WorkPerk research August 2015. Sample size: 11,000)

The feel good factor

Avonmore’s Feel Good Range is completely fat-free

Avonmore’s Feel Good range is the perfect choice for those looking to kick start the New Year with a healthy, nutritious and tasty soup.  Made in Kilkenny with pride, Avonmore Feel Good soups are completely fat free and contain only 100 calories per 400g carton.  Inspired by the Avonmore motto “the taste of homemade”, these wholesome soups are made using nature’s best ingredients to give a deliciously flavoursome soup full of goodness. Avonmore Feel Good soup now comes in a microwaveable carton with an easy-open, one-twist cap, offering consumers even more convenience and freshness.  Available in three flavours – Garden Vegetable, Tomato & Basil, and Mediterranean Vegetable – Avonmore Feel Good soups give good feelings both inside and out.

Real butter, half the fat!

Connacht Gold Low Fat butter contains only 19 calories per serving

Connacht Gold Low Fat butter is a great tasting, natural product. Containing no vegetable oils or chemically, treated fats, it is real butter, but with all the benefits of just half the fat. And with only 19 calories per serving, the whole family can enjoy the delicious natural taste of butter at breakfast time.

Connacht Gold has become a popular choice for consumers the length and breadth of the country, leading to increased sales and market share for the fast growing brand. The brand’s most recent campaign featured businesswoman and busy mum Pippa O’Connor as campaign ambassador. She stressed the importance of eating well in her two roles. “Working as a model for the past 10 years and now having a young family,” she said, “it’s very important to have foods that are healthy but I love food, and I love butter especially. To have a product like Connacht Gold, which doesn’t compromise on taste but is low in fat is great.” Meanwhile, champion jockey Ruby Walsh told how he has been using Connacht Gold Low Fat butter for 19 years on the recommendation of a top clinical nutritionist.

Its great taste has even been proven, having won numerous prestigious taste awards and was deemed the favourite choice by an independent blind tasting.

The nation’s favourite sweet alternative

Hermesetas Mini Sweeteners are perfect to be carried in pocket or purse

What’s more difficult to overcome than sugar cravings? A sweet desire for sugar-loaded foods can often lead to many health problems and most of the time it is one of the main contributors to obesity. However, most consumers want to enjoy life without having to give up a sweet taste. Hermesetas has a solution for that. Its sweeteners are a healthy, sugar-free, calorie reduced sugar alternative.

Hermesetas Mini Sweeteners are one of the world’s favourite sweeteners, and now a favourite in Ireland. Hermesetas Mini Sweeteners are the ideal sweetener for hot beverages. They are available in various sizes; a handy and stylish, slim, pocket or handbag dispenser to be used on the go as well as the bigger size, see-through ‘’click’’ dispenser to use at home.

The recent addition of SteviaSweet tablets to Hermesetas product range offers the consumers a wider choice between traditional and the new natural origin sweeteners. According to consumer manager Marta Bukala, SteviaSweet is now the brand’s fastest growing product in Ireland. It contains no calories and no carbohydrates, and unlike household sugar, SteviaSweet is tooth-friendly. What more can one ask for?

Hermesetas offers a healthy alternative to sugar

Sugar-free baking is another big trend at the moment and with a measure of Hermesetas Granulated, cakes will not only be sugar-free but also low in calories. Hermesetas Granulated is perfect for cooking, sprinkling onto cereals and in cold desserts.

The Ministry for Health launches its National Obesity Strategy to improve the nation’s health and wellbeing. Retailers will also play an important role in this movement by offering consumers what’s better for them. So get Hermesetas on time and see it flying off the shelves! To help with this, Hermesetas is now offering a free clip strip to compliment your store, increase sales and save some space into the bargain. Get in touch via email on info@hermesetas.co.uk to get yours free-of-charge.

YES to exquisite taste and NO to compromise!

Velvet Crunch gourmet bites are delicately air popped, not fried. They are full of flavour and deliver a light, crispy and moreish crunch. Tasty and healthier with just 87 calories per pack and 60% less fat than standard potato crisps, Velvet Crunch is the ‘have-it-all’ healthy snack.

Velvet Crunch established itself as the healthier snack choice for 2015. The brand’s aim was to generate greater awareness, build affinity amongst relevant audiences via above-the-line and below-the-line activity and ultimately drive sales.

Building on 2015’s success, 2016 will see a busy start to the year for Velvet Crunch. Above-the-line activity is scheduled in with TV3, along with a radio promotional campaign on 2FM’s The Nicky Byrne Show and adverts in female targeted titles. To coincide with the ATL support, Velvet Crunch is launching an impulse pre-filled free standing unit to drive engagement in store. Both impulse and multipack formats will have promotional offers at this key time to ensure maximum sales.

Cut out the sugar, keep the flavour!

Vit Hit’s distinctive design matches its natural flavour

Vit Hit is the market leader in healthy drinks in Ireland, and the fastest-growing soft drinks brand in the country.

According to Gary Lavin, Vit Hit founder, the dramatic rise in obesity in Ireland is due to an overload of sugar in our diets. “As a nation, our consumption of fat is actually down,” Lavin says, “but sugar is up and obesity is rising dramatically.”

Despite having the lowest sugar content in the category, Vit Hit still has great taste people associate with everyday treats. “The human body can only process 25 grams of sugar per day,” Lavin says. “Some drinks out there will put you over your daily sugar levels in one fell swoop. Just by switching from your everyday sports drink or carbonated soft drink, you could cut down by a whopping 22 grams of sugar.”

“The jig is up for sugary drinks,” he adds. “People are now reading the labels and voting with their wallets.”

Vit Hit comes in five flavours, with less than 35 calories per bottle and 300mgs of healthy tea in every bottle.  ‘Sugar reduction, healthy diet and exercise should be major goals for adults and kids alike, especially coming into this period of excess consumption’. Vit Hit is a great way to get a treat but without all the sugar and calories normally associated with soft drinks.  

Read More: healthy Weight management

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