COFFEE FOR POCKET – Ferrero selects Malta as test market

MALTA – For the third consecutive year, Ferrero, the world’s fourth largest confectionery group, has selected Malta as a test market for a range of new products. This time the new coffee for pockets Ready to go.

The study, which kicked off in May and will run until October, is focused on

Gran Soleil too, the freezable summer dessert – a cross between ice-cream and sorbet – and its recently expanded assortment of flavours.

It will be overseen by P. Cutajar and Co, the consumer goods importer, distributor and retailer, whose collaboration with Ferrero dates to 1967.

“Ferrero employs highly scientific methods of longitudinal studies for each of its new products or those still under development before launching on a worldwide scale,” sales and marketing director Denis Zammit Cutajar told The Sunday Times.

“Malta offers the ideal conditions for research and development – it is a complete and small market which enables easy logistics and micro-communication.

Culturally, it has similarities with other Mediterranean countries, positive sales figures, and positive responses to a fully developed media.”

Mr Zammit Cutajar said Malta and P. Cutajar were identified for this project 10 years ago when market tests for Gran Café, the ‘grandfather’ product to Gran Soleil, were carried out locally.

The Malta market research into Gran Soleil aims to collate information about the product’s market, category and target consumer group to identify the final presentation, particularly where taste, flavour mix, packaging, communication and marketing are concerned.

A range of variables are under the spotlight – age, gender, and socio-economic groups, seasonality, product perception, consumption trends, besides product feedback. The painstaking study will also include one-to-one interviews carried out

in homes in Malta and Gozo to map product use, shopping behaviour, brand loyalty and product awareness.

Mr Zammit Cutajar pointed out that from the outset, sales expectations were exceeded and Maltese consumers’ response has been “overwhelming”. The company expects a similar reaction this year as new flavours (vanilla, capuccino and espresso) have been added to the existing range of lemon, passion fruit and mandarin varieties. Malta is the only country outside Italy where the product, which is aimed mainly at households, is sold nationwide.

Gran Soleil, Mr Zammit Cutajar explained, answers a clear consumer demand for a product to round-off a meal lightly. The product does not contain colourings or preservatives, and is sold in liquid format in practical, air-tight packaging. After being shaken well and placed in the freezer, it is ready for consumption within eight hours.

In the first test three years ago when only one flavour was under scrutiny, the sales were double the original target, Mr Zammit Cutajar recalled. Consumer take-up on the two additional flavours the following year exceeded expectations again, without denting sales figures for the original variety.

Over the past two years, Ferrero ran an aggressive consumer communications campaign for the product range. A TV commercial dubbing Gran Soleil as the ‘nectar of the gods’ aired on all stations during prime time. The campaign also included radio and print advertising. Considerable investment was made in displays at major stores and an extensive tasting campaign was undertaken during the summer.

Ferrero’s roots lie in a Piedmont family business. Just after World War II, Piera and Pietro Ferrero transformed a little bar and pastry shop into a factory. Their young son Michele, who lent his ideas to a range of artisan products, grew up to be the first Italian industrialist to open factories and operate companies overseas.

The driving force behind Ferrero Group, he is credited with revolutionising the consumer habits of millions of consumers, backed by his wife Maria Franca, and his uncle Giovanni who had devised an efficient sales network. Pietro Ferrero died prematurely in 1949. The group is now headed by Pietro and Giovanni Ferrero, Michele’s sons, who are managing directors.

Ferrero reported a turnover of €6.2 billion for the financial year 2007-2008, up 8.2 per cent over the previous year. It distributes a wide range of products across the globe, operates in 38 countries, runs14 plants and employs 12,600 people.

Last year, the annual study by the Reputation Institute of New York moved Ferrero in first place in its rankings. The Italian group surpassed Ikea and Johnson and Johnson, and was well ahead of Nintendo and Christian Dior in the top 10.

P. Cutajar and Co’s story is even older. In 1861, aged 17, Paul Cutajar began a trading business from his home at 20, Strada Reale in Valletta. Mr Zammit Cutajar explains how Paul initially imported wheat and cereals, but was also active in the

coal trade and even bought a steamer, the Nave Elena. His firm was renamed P. Cutajar and Co in 1865 and rapid expansion saw important distributorship agreements sealed. Two signed with Martini and Rossi (1880) and Benedictine (1886) are still firmly present in the firm’s portfolio. Paul left the business to his nephew Arthur Zammit Cutajar after his death in 1897 but his father Francesco Zammit ran it until Arthur became of age.

In the early part of the last century, after moving to St Paul’s Street, the company primarily operated a ship agency – in 1913, it handled 323 ships, making it the largest steamship agent on the island. Arthur’s sons Alfred, Francis and George were the company’s first directors when it became a limited liability company in 1958.

Now operating from custom-built premises in Mriehel, P. Cutajar and Co, run by a management team of eight (including fourth and fifth generation Cutajars), is now an importer and distributor of well-known photography equipment, wine, coffee, water, liquer, and fashion accessory brands.