Cold Case
By John J. Pierce

B.A. Pal parrot mascot promotes Stop & Shop chocolate syrup.

Refrigerated creamers aren’t as visible as shelf-stable, but they dominate store brand sales growth. Coffee syrups create a buzz, but little private label exposure.

Wherever you see coffee, you see coffee creamers. They’re nearly always in the coffee and tea aisle, between the coffee and tea, and store brands as well as national brands usually come in several sizes, from eight ounces to 32 or more, some with non-dairy and fat-free options.

Just about everything that can be done with shelf-stable creamers already has been, in terms of flavors as well as formulas. Maybe that explains why the growth has shifted to refrigerated coffee creamers, where sales were up 18.5% to $42.6 million for the 52 weeks ended 1/27/2008, according to Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), Chicago, IL.
Shelf stable creamer sales were 3.8% to $118.8 million for the same period, and with a 40.6% share they’re a lot more visible than refrigerated versions, which have only a 4.7% share. Still, private label refrigerated sales have nearly quadrupled since 1997, when they amounted to only $11.2 million, and overall sales were only $310 million then versus $901 million last year.

Just a few SKU’s seem to dominate the refrigerated segment, however. Lowes Food, Winston-Salem, NC, for example, has just two–a pint and a quart of the same basic creamer–versus 10, mostly flavored, in shelf stable. People who want to flavor their own coffee, at a time when many coffees are sold already flavored, seem to gravitate towards the coffee aisle, where – sometimes – they’ll also find flavored coffee syrups.

One of the main reasons that flavored coffees have become such a rage is that they offer sweetness and flavor without contributing to fat or cholesterol intake,” trade journalist Johnathan Bakers wrote in a piece called “Coffee Machines That Earn Their Keep.” “The recent craze to avoid fat and cholesterol has contributed greatly to the popularity of flavored coffee syrups. Low carb diets are another boon to the flavored coffee business. You can feel as though you are eating a chocolate donut when you order a choco-latte, but there are no carbs in this baby.”

It makes sense to have flavored syrups in institutional coffee machines, rather than a whole bunch of pre-flavored coffees. That’s likely why just a few retailers like Kroger, Cincinnati, OH, and Target, Minneapolis, MN, have gotten into store brand coffee syrups – as opposed to the many who carry pancake and waffle syrups, chocolate syrups for milk and fruit syrups for topping ice cream and the like. IRI has listings for those, but none that seems to apply to flavored syrups for coffee.

Amaretto is one of the syrup flavors at Kroger; Target also has caramel. Amaretto is also a favorite in shelf stable creamers, including at Wal-Mart, Bentonville, AR, and others include French vanilla, hazelnut and Irisd crème. Topco Associates, Skokie, IL, includes Dulce de Leche in its Food Club line.

If coffee syrups take off in private label to the same extent as creamers, there are all sorts of varieties retailers might choose. A branded specialty supplier offers a range of 87 flavors–among them banana, apple, butter rum, maple, watermelon, peanut butter, toasted marshmallow, pumpkin spice, root beer, tiramisu, blood orange, English toffee and, yes, a flavor that seems to be going into anything and everything these days: pomegranate. And 27 of the flavors are sugar-free.

They aren’t selling coffee and coffee creamers to kids yet, but they’re selling lots of chocolate syrup, store brands included. Stop & Shop, Boston, MA, even puts its mascot – a blue parrot called B.A. Pal – on its private label packaging, which the chain no longer does for its children’s cereals.

Store brand chocolate syrup sales totaled $25.5 million over the past year, 9.5% of total sales, according to IRI. Growth was only 0.9%. but national brand growth was slow or none. Whatever the case there, syrups did better than chocolate drink mixes: sales for those were off 7.4% to $3.2 million and a three percent share; the total market was down 5.1%. Store brand cocoa sales, at $30.3 million, were off slightly – but in that category, overall volume was up 5.5%.

Going further afield, there was a strong increase in store brand pancake and waffle syrups – 7.5% to $108.9 million and a 24.1% share. Much of that growth may be in pure maple syrups, a favorite of premium lines like Archer Farms at Target, Minneapolis, MN – which offers such variations as cinnamon-infused. Fruit-flavored syrups, which some consumers favor for their pancakes and waffles, were off 2.3% to $3.5 million and an 8.1% share. Still, some retailers have high hopes for them: Hannaford offers red raspberry, strawberry and even Wild Maine blueberry versions under the Inspirations brand.

Recommended Suppliers

• ACH Retail Products, Cordova, TN, 901 381-3181
• Bay Valley Foods, Green Bay, WI, 800 558-4700
• Shamrock Farms, Phoenix, AZ, 602 477-2372 x 2327
• Inter-American Products, Cincinnati, OH, 800-645-2233
• The Carriage House Companies, Inc., Fredonia, NY, 716-673-8440

Products described or shown in this article are not necessarily available from these suppliers. For more suppliers see current Private Label Directory & Buyer’s Guide.