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Cereals and cereal bars
Breakfast cereals
Sweden and the UK have the most developed breakfast cereal markets and there is now little, if any, room for further expansion.
Attempts have been made to add value to these markets, which have become increasingly fragmented with the development of functional, organic and healthy variants.
Meanwhile smaller, specialist brands, have found success especially in the health and muesli sectors.
Cereal bars
Cereal and energy bars have enjoyed one of the fastest growth rates of the food industry in recent years.
Today there are many types available for use either as breakfast or meal replacements, snacking, for energy or body-building.
According to RTS research, the main trends in cereals and cereal bars are:
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fruits and flavour ‘pieces’
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more complex formulations
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healthier / pre-biotic / pro-biotic / syn-biotic / omega-3
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organic and FairTrade
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wellness and functional products
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breakfasts on-the-move
Market sizes
Sales of cereals and cereal bars in Western Europe reached €7.2 billion in 2007, having grown by an average of 3.8% per year since 2002.
Volume, consumption totalled 1.9 million tonnes, having grown by an annual average of 1.2%.
Today, average European per person consumption of cereals and cereal bars stands at 5 kilos.
However, the performance of cereals and cereal bars has varied considerably by country.
Whilst in most European countries time-pressed consumers are increasingly turning to ready-to-eat cereals for a quick and nutritious breakfast, the market in the UK has long reached a point of saturation and some small declines are being recorded.
Meanwhile, the health-giving properties of oats have not resulted in a significant increase in overall consumption that some might have anticipated.
Cereal bars have, though, enjoyed high levels of growth across Europe during the same period.