Twin Agencies is enjoying a strong year in 2021 with the company expected to deliver growth for all the brands it represents in the New Zealand market.
Richard Kirby, National Channel Manager – Wholesale and Impulse, Twin Agencies, told C&I NZ that the petrol and convenience (P&C) channel is extremely important to the company and that it has lots of exciting plans in-store for its brands and customers.
During the height of the pandemic, customers turned to their local convenience store as more of a top up shop to avoid the larger crowds of a supermarket. During this time customers were also actively seeking out locally made products, which is great news for Twin Agencies, as the company has been exclusively representing NZ brands for more than 24 years.
Whittaker’s and RJ’s are the key brands that Twin Agencies manages in the petrol channel, and Whittaker’s in particular is showing strong growth ahead of the Total Chocolate category. In fact, Whittaker’s has the highest growth overall of any manufacturer in the petrol channel in NZ.
Whittaker’s has recently launched a newly formatted product range, the Hokey Pokey Crunch, available in three formats; Single Slab, Share Bag, and Block 250g. The Slab variant has been ranged by all major convenience retailers in NZ and is a welcome addition to the Single Slab Range.
Kirby told C&I NZ that Whittaker’s is always evaluating its products and making improvements if there is the potential for them to perform better in market.
“The owners at Whittaker’s won’t let any product out of the factory unless they believe it’s the best that it can be,” he said.
Around three years ago, Whittaker’s conducted a flavour improvement on its Milk Caramel block, spending around seven years perfecting the caramel.
The improvement, led to the launch of Dark Salted Caramel and to Milk Caramel being rebranded to Creamy Caramel, which is now the second-best performing block and the number two performing product within the category.
“This flavour improvement took some sales away from our competition and it also brought a lot of new users into the category. Both of the improved caramel products perform well above what the original Milk Caramel was, and this was definitely one of our stronger product launches and paved the way for future flavour improvements, like Hokey Pokey Crunch,” said Kirby.
“Whittaker’s has probably focussed its attention with NPD more towards grocery over the last few years but are now starting to really turn their attention to single bars and the non-grocery channel and there is going to be a lot more of a focus on channels like P&C over the next few years.”
Innovation will be a priority for Twin Agencies for the remainder of the year with a focus on working with retailers to get the most out of sales.
“Our focus will be innovation and excitement in all the categories we work in and working with retailers to deliver the best return on space for their categories,” says Kirby.
“We are truly proud to represent our family of NZ brands, which we have done for over 24 years in NZ.”
