Abstract
According to a study in the UK, “The ice cream sector is a major part of the UK's food economy with an estimated value of £4 billion” and “Ice cream sales contribute £1.4 bn to the UK economy” (BBC News (b) 2010). As we can observe, there is a substantial ice cream market in the UK with major opportunities considering the annual consumption per capita of 5.2 liters (Euroglaces 2009 Ice Cream Market Report).
in order to identify the major competitors of Carte D'Or luxury ice cream, we have to examine the premium and luxury ice cream segments. Main competitors in the premium and luxury sector are Nestlé, Unilever Group, Mars Inc, Baskin Robbins and others independents labels. However, within these international groups, one can perceive competition between internal brands such as Ben & Jerry's and Carte D'Or within the Unilever Group. In the UK, the three major ice cream brands are Carte D'Or (natural product), Ben & Jerry's (home-made product) and Haagen-Dazs (organic product); Three different brands, three different ways of manufacture , and nevertheless the three leaders on the UK ice-cream market.
But making this kind of promotions is not enough to expand brand. To fix this matter, we have to find a new product, a new category of product fit to potential customers. Recently, a product has been noticed with a lot of potential for the ice-cream market: gelato. Indeed, gelato is a new way of making ice-cream, created by Antonio Federici who received the award for “best ice-cream in the world 2009” by the IICC (International Ice Cream Consortium). IICC is one of the main collective groups of ice cream manufacturers just after Unilever and Nestlé (FoodBev, 2009). Maybe there is scope for this product development within this “new category”.
However, companies have their best turn over during winter and want to extend their sales to all seasons. Manufacturers are trying to de-seasonalise ice cream to sell it all along the year (Market analyst Mintel, 2009). To go in that way, they tried to promote ice cream by organizing susbstantial promotion by time (examples of Easter, Halloween).
Remain the questions: what kind of specific customer? Which kind of product? To sum up: what do today's buyers want?
