Trend Tracker: Nestle's premium chocolate, Coca-Cola's new mobile app, Alibaba's durian venture and more feature in this round-up
‘Handcrafted, artisanal and authentic’: Nestle India wants to conquer ‘super premium’ chocolate market
Nestle India has its eye on India’s ‘super premium’ chocolates market with the introduction of its new Les Recettes De L’Atelier range.
The latest in Nestle’s new product launch spree over the past several months, the new premium chocolates are said to be Switzerland-made at Maison Callier, the famed ‘Chocolate Museum’ in operation since 1899.
One of the key features of the new chocolate range is its appearance, which Nestle describes using a variety of terms such as ‘rugged-looking’ and ‘visibly authentic’ in the official press release.
“Les Recettes De L’Atelier [provides] a genuine experience in taste, texture and look,” said Nestle India Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan.
‘The power of digital’: Coca-Cola India develops mobile app to sell Kinley mineral water online
Coca-Cola India has turned to mobile technology to sell its Kinley mineral water to Indian customers, as part of its ‘digital transformation’ strategy.
“With the advent of Internet of things, we are advancing towards using IoT to understand our consumers better and help our bottlers make better decisions, [hence this app],” said a Coca-Cola India spokeswoman to FoodNavigator-Asia.
At present, the app services only apply to the purchase of bulk jars of Kinley mineral water online, although Coca-Cola India added that it is ‘constantly looking at leveraging the power of digital to recruit more consumers’.
“[This is part of] our journey to be a ‘Total beverages company’ and making our products available to consumers whenever they want and in whichever way they want.”
e-Durian: Alibaba partners with Malaysian durian supplier for online China sales
The Alibaba Group has teamed up with Malaysian durian supplier BEHO Fresh to sell Malaysia-sourced Musang King durians to China via e-commerce, on the back of soaring consumer demand for the ‘King of Fruits’.
Alibaba’s e-shopping platform Tmall, its sourcing platform Win-Chain, the China Certification and Inspection Group Malaysia (CCIC) and Malaysian durian supplier BEHO Fresh have teamed up in what has been called a ‘strategic cooperation’.
According to Alibaba, “The deal marks a further effort by Alibaba to harness the power of e-commerce and its dynamic ecosystem to contribute to the growth of Malaysia's agricultural exports.”
Beho Fresh’s role will be to provide Win-Chain with whole frozen Musang King durians, which will then be distributed via Tmall and other e-commerce marketplaces in China.
‘New products almost every day’: Nissin taps NPD and premium branding to hit triple growth target
Cup noodle giant Nissin aims to expand its business in Asia (excluding China) by over three times to US$ 213mn (JPY 24.1bn) in FY 2021 by focusing on a variety of areas including product development and premium branding.
Nissin spokesman Daisuke Okabayashi, Manager, Corporate Communications, Nissin Foods Holdings told FoodNavigator-Asia: “[To do this], we are accelerating sales of our leading brand, CUP NOODLES, in each subsidiary in Asian countries.”
“The target audience of our CUP NOODLES in overseas is the young people with a certain standard of living. We are approaching to that target market by developing new design and flavors, and by conducting effecting promotions for them, such as web marketing and SNS.”
“Nissin launches new products almost every day. In fact, Nissin Japan launched more than 350 new products only in the Japanese market last year,” he added.
Revealed: The top 10 most popular APAC food and beverage trend stories of 2018
We reveal the top 10 most-read APAC food and beverage market and trend stories of 2018 surrounding sugar, sustainability and other trends in the food and beverage industry.
These include trends from Thailand, China, Japan, Australia and many more.
