Italian pasta brand De Cecco has emerged as Italy's favourite pasta, registering a 13.7% year-on-year growth in sales in the first four months of 2019, with around 10.9 million families buying its products, a study has found.
The company, whose portfolio also includes oil, flour, tomato derivatives, sauces, and bakery products, has emerged as a leader in the Nielsen Top 75 Manufacturer rankings, based on retail turnover.
De Cecco also saw the highest percentage of growth in terms of value (+20.4%) and emerged second in the Nielsen Packaged Food category for absolute growth in value sales (+€15.7 million) in the country.
Decline In Demand
The Italian market has seen a 1.1% drop in consumption of semolina pasta during the first seven months of 2019.
However, an additional 734,000 Italian families have purchased De Cecco semolina pasta, taking the percentage of households buying the product to 45.1%.
The performance of De Cecco semolina pasta in the large-scale retail channel has been decidedly "premium", the study found.
There was also a 1.6% increase in the average number of SKUs on store shelves, with a significant improvement in the product assortment.
Category Growth
De Cecco’s positive performance in the retail channel was not only limited to semolina pasta, however, as sales of wholemeal pasta were up 27.4%, reaching a historic value share of 11.2% (+2.1%). Elsewhere, speciality pasta saw sales grow by 17.4%.
Sales of De Cecco extra virgin olive oil increased by 35% in volume.
The brand is planning to launch multigrain and gluten-free pasta shortly, allowing it to expand its presence in the healthy food segment.
In foreign markets, its sales grew by 4.2% in volume until August, with the highest demand in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and Central America.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
