Brand New: Updates from Nestle, Carlsberg, Kirin and more big brands feature in our round-up
Chilling out: Nestle develops new espresso range to cater to growing APAC demand for customisation and cold brews
Nestle believes that a growing demand in the Asia Pacific for customisation, convenience and colder coffee options make this region the optimal launchpad for its new espresso concentrates.
Nestle Vietnam was the first to make an in-depth foray into this category with the launch of its ready-to-serve coffee concentrate sticks late last year, but with very distinctive variants catering to local Vietnamese consumer tastes.
The company appears to now be looking to broaden this category in general by developing concentrates made of espresso coffee, a much more well-recognised coffee variant across the APAC region.
2024 Acceleration: Carlsberg Malaysia pledges additional investment to boost portfolio expansion and supply chain efficiency
Brewery giant Carlsberg Malaysia has pledged to pour in additional investments to boost select parts of its SAIL business strategy, with priority given to areas such as premium and zero-alcohol innovation, digitalisation and supply chain efficiency improvement.
Carlsberg Malaysia recently held its latest Annual General Meeting (AGM) whereupon Managing Director Stefano Clini announced a refresh of the firm’s five-year guiding strategy SAIL ’27 to become Accelerate SAIL, which would see additional resources being pumped into seven individual areas of the business.
“This is essentially the same SAIL ‘27 strategy we have been following all along, but this is just a refresh where we have selected seven elements in which to invest more to accelerate progress,” Clini told the floor at the post-AGM press conference, which FoodNavigator-Asia attended.
Jewel of Japan: Kirin’s Mercian partners with Chilean wine giant to boost worldwide reach
Kirin wine brand Mercian is partnering with Chilean wine giant Concha y Toro to launch a series of premium products including Japanese wines with a globalised flavour profile to improve its worldwide reach.
Chateau Mercian is one of Japan’s leading wine brands, whereas Concha y Toro is one of the 10 largest wine companies globally.
The new partnership between both parties, dubbed the Pacific Link Project, will look at seasonal developments of two new wines of Chilean and Japanese origin throughout the year based on the seasonal differences in both countries.
“The harvest and vinification time [for grapes] is March in Chile, and September in Japan – so in March the focus will be to make a new Chilean wine with a powerful flavour concurring with the spring season, whereas in September the focus will be on making a Japanese wine concurring with the Autumn season,” Viña Concha y Toro Regional Director for Asia Pacific Guy Nussey told FoodNavigator-Asia.
Fonterra to focus on B2B services in sweeping strategic change
The New Zealand co-operative is set to offload some of its best-known consumer brands to create ‘a simpler, higher-performing’ business.
Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd is exploring how to divest from some of its global consumer and integrated businesses in order to focus on its ‘high-performing’ ingredients and foodservice channels.
The announcement follows a strategic review which confirmed the co-op’s B2B services should be prioritized ahead of the Group’s consumer and associated portfolios.
Fonterra’s consumer offering includes well-known brands Anchor, Fernleaf and Western Star, but the co-op’s management thinks that focusing entirely on its ingredients and foodservice provision would offer the highest value in the long term.
Mass appeal: Mondelez, Hunter Foods, Taokaenoi and more snack leaders on why portion control, better ingredients key to APAC success
Snacking industry heavyweights from Mondelez to Hunter Foods have highlighted portioned packaging and the more thoughtful use of ingredients as crucial factors that can help firms stand out and gain mass appeal in the increasingly crowded APAC snacking sector.
Although the snacking sector has seen some of the most successful growth amongst food and beverage categories in Asia Pacific both through and beyond the pandemic, this success has translated into a great deal more competition within the industry due to many new companies seeking to enter the market as well as existing ones from other areas pivoting to gain entry as well.
In order to stand out in this increasingly crowded space, these companies have innovated in many different ways – but the consensus is generally that the age-old conundrum of snacks being ‘healthier’ but also ‘tastier’ has become ever more important.
