Alex Hall, senior client insight manager for leading market research company GfK, takes a look at how consumer preference for high-end product has been driving growth across the feeding sector over the last year.
“Premium product has been driving growth across the feeding market for the last 12 months, with the overall feeding sector outperforming the market and growing by 4% in value. (It is worth noting that the market actually declined by 2% in volume and that the value uplift is driven by an increase in the price paid.)
The largest segment in feeding accounts for almost a third of the category’s total value, while the only segment to see any sort of decline is bottles and teats, which is down by 4%.
Tableware, on the other hand, now accounts for an impressive 29% of the value of the overall feeding market and showed strong growth at 11%.
The biggest sub-category within tableware is cups, tumblers and sports bottles, which makes up almost two thirds of the category’s value and is still growing at 19%.
It is likely that the uplift in sports bottles can be attributed to the ‘David Attenborough effect’, which is causing both manufacturers and consumers to think more about single-use plastic and making the conscious decision to pack their child’s lunch box with a refillable sports bottle rather than a single-use plastic drink.
The bottle warmers and steriliser category is the best performing value segment, seeing a growth of 17% – largely driven by the bottle warmers. These increased by 34%, fueled by a £10 rise in the average price paid, which rose from £33 to £43. The value of the steriliser market on the other hand is down by 6% with just a £1 increase in price.
This all shows that while consumer confidence and footfall tends to remain low in the wider market, consumers are showing their willingness to trade up across many categories with the hope of buying once but buying well.”
Read this article in full in the May/June issue of Progressive Preschool.
