New launches will help Kellogg make 50% of sales

Kellogg is aiming to significantly increase its share of the healthy snacks market with the launch of a new brand called FruitaBü

The first products launched in January will be Apple Crisps (dried slices of apple in three flavours) and Fruit Juicies (whole fruits soaked in fruit juice and air-dried). Each pack will contain one of the five recommended daily portions of fruit.

Kellogg UK md Greg Peterson said FruitaBü was part of the cereal giant's strategy to increase the proportion of sales derived from snacks from 15% to 50%.

Kellogg had in future to focus on 'fewer, bigger' product launches and concentrate resources on groundbreaking concepts, not 'me-too' products, said Peterson, who joined the UK business last November.

"Kellogg UK is a great business with smart people in it who are determined to strengthen and grow our brands. But when I joined, I thought are our internal processes for ideas generation, selection and screening as effective as they could be? In some areas, we were best in class; in others, we were 10 years' behind where we were elsewhere in the business."

Recent launch Special K Sustain, with protein and fibre to keep hunger at bay, had got off to a "cracking start", he said. But cholesterol-lowering Optivita was recently re-launched because the proposition was not right first time, admitted Peterson. "You have to have some humility. It was holding its own on shelf but it wasn't realising its full potential."