SF-Confectionery-2020

6 SAPPHIRE BRANDS @specialityfood Our liquorice makes a great clean-label snack; it has a simple wheat, sugar and molasses formulation. Our liquorice is made in Levin, a town about an hour north of Wellington. This year we’ve felt the advantage of being on a small island the other side of the world! We’ve had to over buy ingredients like everyone else, and there’s been some disruption to staffing but we’ve been lucky no major shut downs. Arguably a bigger challenge has been eradicating palm oil from all our SKUs, a process that will be complete some time next year. R J’s has been around for about 23 years as a brand, and has been exporting to the UK for around 12 of those years. Liquorice is huge in New Zealand; we have the highest consumption in the world, and RJ’s is a big part of the reason. It’s the number one liquorice brand in New Zealand and is actually the number two non-chocolate confectionery brand here. The innovation to put chocolate through the liquorice is what turned things around here, and served as a gateway for people who later enjoy their liquorice without chocolate. Could liquorice be the UK’s next big growthmarket? The potential is huge, says Jason Clements, RJ’s general manager for international markets We love working with independents, and we’ll continue to build what we do with them CONFECTIONERY’S DARKHORSE premiumisation and means there’s not a lot of differentiation between them. We love working with independents, and we’ll continue to build what we do with them. In terms of getting real traction with consumer habits it’ll take one of the big players to look at premiumisation. If they do, there is huge potential in the UK based on what we see globally. It’s not easy but it’s important to us to make sure it’s not just our liquorice that’s palm oil free, but that no ingredient uses it in its manufacture. The UK is seen as the home of liquorice, but it’s actually a frustrating market, to be honest. While we’ve seen massive growth in the US and Australia, and business tripling in New Zealand, the problem in the UK is innovation. The large multiple retailers currently stock one, maybe two liquorice products if you’re lucky; they’re engaged in a pound war that lowers