Milk is shaking off its sleepy, 1950s image and taking retailers and consumers by surprise with a flurry of new product introductions and marketing activity.
Barry Hogan, vice-president of marketing for Parmalat Canada, says milk is finally outgrowing its reputation as a commodity, with recent activity, primarily in Ontario, just the beginning of product innovation and marketing differentiation by the major dairies.
Parmalat has just delivered two new products into Ontario’s premium milk market, Beatrice PurFiltre Original and Beatrice PurFiltre Calcium. Earlier this month, it launched Milk Mania and Shake-A-Shake, two new single-serving flavored milk brands in grab-and-go plastic bottles.
Hogan says the premium products and the single-serving skus are designed to recapture segments of the market that have been showing a steady decline in milk consumption over the years – premium for the adult market and single-serving for the teen and young adult group – and that there’s still lots of room for innovation in the category.
‘There will be a drive by us, and I would expect by some of our competitors, to answer some of the nutritional needs of an aging population,’ predicts Hogan, adding, ‘We all have the desire to take milk out the commodity segment and take it more into the realm of value-added products.’
Hogan says that the battle for market share in the milk business will be made through marketing, not on the basis of price – and may the best dairy win.
Advertising for Parmalat’s new products will be handled by Palmer Jarvis DDB, the Toronto agency awarded the company’s $10-million-plus account last week following a review of five agencies.
A mixed media campaign for Beatrice PurFiltre, which Hogan says will be in the seven-figure range, is scheduled to begin Sept. 1.
He says the frenzy of activity comes after a couple of years of rationalization and consolidation. Now, the major competitors all vying for a leadership role.
‘It’s very much a horse race, and there’s the three of us – Neilson, Natrel and ourselves – all in lockstep for the lead.
Ontario’s three major dairies each have about an equal piece of the milk market which is valued at more than $1 billion at the retail level.
Neilson Dairy, part of George Weston Ltd., markets its premium milk under the TruTaste brand and its calcium-enriched product as TruCalcium, and will soon be launching its brand of single-serving milk.
Last month, Natrel relaunched its premium brand as Natrel Fine Filtre and introduced a new brand, Moostache milk, as well as Hershey milkshake products.
Natrel’s name change allows Parmalat to marry the equity of flagship Beatrice brand with PurFiltre, a well-established wordmark discarded by Natrel.
This brand juggling is a result of last year’s purchase of Ault Foods’ Ontario fluid milk operation, which gave Natrel, a division of Agropur of Granby, Que., the filtering technology.
Parmalat, a subsidiary of Parmalat S.p.A. of Italy, had purchased Beatrice Foods earlier in the year. It later bought the rest of Ault, including ownership of the name Lactantia, the brand under which PurFiltre was first introduced in 1994.
