Ricola – which has placed a new focus on travel retail over the past two years –offers the confectionery category a unique portfolio of products with its new launches filling a gap in the market place. “Our USP is that Ricola is not just another sugar confectionery brand,” says Andreas Reckart, Ricola Head of Travel Retail and Middle East. “Ricola has built its reputation as the world’s leading supplier of herb drops and candy which we are positioning as a ‘Herbal Travel Essential’, perfect for soothing travellers’ voice and throat related issues caused by dry cabin air, air conditioning, climate changes, illness, etc.”
To date Ricola’s travel retail offer has followed the standard pattern of gifting and sharing products, but extensive research revealed an untapped niche. “Consumers told us that they like to purchase Ricola in travel retail to take with them and use immediately,” continues Reckart. “This made us realize that Ricola products follow a different dynamic than other confectionery brands; we are different and we need to capitalize on this.”
The result is three new products in smaller pack sizes that are totally exclusive to travel retail. “Not only do they address this important immediate need from the consumer, they also meet the clear demand from travellers for products which are exclusive to the channel.”
While details on the new lines are not yet available, Reckart confirms that they will reflect the company decision to totally move away from using domestic packaging in travel retail.
“For many years, travel retail was treated as a bit of an afterthought by Ricola,” he continues. “Domestic products were sold to travel retail in Europe with limited ambition to move beyond. Now that travel retail has become an important focus within our business we realize the need to create a totally exclusive portfolio for the channel.”
Reckart says that the company’s efforts have certainly begun to show fruit – but there is still a long way to go. ‘We have made some inroads into Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, but Europe is still the region where most of our Travel Retail business is coming from,’ he says. ‘While we certainly want to continue expanding the European business, we are strongly targeting other regions, particularly Asia. The travel retail business should at the end of the day be a reflection of our business in domestic markets where Ricola has tremendous brand equity across very diverse markets in the whole world. We are absolutely committed to travel retail and to investing the resources needed to grow our business.”
To that end Ricola exhibited for the first time at TFWA Asia Pacific this year which, it says, was a great success: “The Singapore show was great, we met our existing customers/distributors in Asia and also established worthwhile contacts with new players in the market which has already lead to new business. This has included signing up with a distributor in India who will seek to develop our business in India, Sri Lanka and Maldives Duty Free.”
With Cannes now just around the corner, Reckart is confident that Ricola is becoming a serious player in the travel retail confectionery market place. “We will have a continued presence both in Cannes and Singapore and – while we still see ourselves at the beginning of a long road ahead – we are certainly here to stay.”
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