Asian appetite for biscuits grows
years, due mainly to the continuing strength of the China market.
However launches are coming thick and fast throughout the region,
as this week's product launches from Mintel testify.
Currently growth in the sweet biscuits market is still overshadowed by the savoury biscuits in the Asia Pacific region. According to a Euromonitor report published in September 2002, growth during the period 1998-2002 ran at 30 per cent for savoury biscuits, whereas growth for sweet biscuits ran at 16 per cent during the same period.
The report says that generally this is down to pricing, with more sophisticated ingredients for sweet biscuits adding to costs and positioning them more at the luxury end of the market. However, increasingly health issues are becoming more of an issue for this market, with many manufacturers responding by launching fortified and reduced calorie products.
China is currently the shining star in the Asia Pacific sweet biscuits market, with future growth expected to be largely driven by the huge volume demand there. Until very recently sweet biscuits were not a common part of the Chinese diet, but, says the report, with rising incomes and people turning more and more to snack products, the sweet biscuit is now witnessing a rapid rise in popularity.
Largely off the back of growth in the China market, the Euromonitor report estimates that Asia Pacific's share of the world biscuit market will have grown from 15 per cent 1998 to 19 per cent by 2007.
However, despite the rapid growth in the China sweet biscuit market, growth is also occurring throughout the Asia Pacific region, as this selection of product launches proves. The first launch is in South Korea, where Haitai is launching a brand new product, Crispy Biscuits. Wrapped in shelve stable carton board, the 84 gram pack retails at €0.39, which contains crispy biscuits with a chocolate flavoured cream filling sprinkled with peanut bits. Ingredients include egg, butter, palm oil and peanut paste.
In the Philippines Monde Nissin is launching Kriskits Crispy Honey Orange Biscuits. Retailing at €0.11 for a 70 gram flexible pack, this adult-orientated snack contains fortified wheatflour, coconut oil, palm oil and skimmed milk powder.
In Australia Masterfoods is launching a new variety to its popular line of biscuits based on Mars chocolate bars. This time its Bisc & Milky Way Biscuits, which features the company's well established Milky Way chocolate bar, combined with 48 per cent biscuit and 24 per cent milk chocolate. Wrapped in boarded carton, the product retails at €1.52 for 145 grams.
Still in Australasia, Redwood Agencies is launching Winnie the Pooh Cookies for the New Zealand market. Featuring the popular Children's story book character on the wrapper, the shortbread biscuits come in cocoa and honey flavoured varieties which are contained in 225 gram pack sizes.
This range of finished food and drink products is part of a selection from Mintel's Global New Product Database.
