When deciding how to package their products international food manufacturers take into account the preferences and tastes of the individual countries in which their products are sold. For example, it is much easier to buy a multipack of 4, 6 or 8 different flavours of fruit yoghurt in Belgium than it is in France or Germany. Retail expert and professor of marketing at Leuven University (KUL) Els Breugelmans told VRT News that “Producers and supermarkets do their homework very well” when it comes to this.
International food manufactures take national tastes and preferences into account
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Those of you that have holidayed in France will no doubt have seen that in French supermarkets multipacks of yoghurt are almost always sold containing just one flavour. This enables the customer to buy 6 or 8 yoghurts that are their favourite flavour all at once. However, here in Belgium it’s a different story. In Belgian supermarkets multipacks, often of the same brand as those sold in France are only available containing yoghurts of several different flavours.
This is a question that Robby Verschueren from Puurs-Sint-Amands asked VRT Radio 2’s consumer programme ‘WinWin’ “I love cherry-flavoured fruit yoghurt but it is hardly to be found here and when I do find it, it's in a multipack with other flavours that I don't like uch as kiwi”.
Market research
But is it the case that in country A you can find a pack made up of at least 4 pots of the same flavour and in country B you can’t? The yoghurts that Robby buys are made by the French food company Danone. In a response Danone says that “Over the years, we have carried out market research regarding various options for fruit and flavour combinations in multipacks. The products that are currently on the market are the ones that most popular with shoppers".
“Via our Customer Care Line’, we sometimes get feedback on flavours and we also conduct regular research with customers to determine what any new variant should be. We take all this into account when adapting our product range. So as to suit consumers' needs and inspire them with new flavours and variants."
Demography also a determining factor
Professor Brugelmans says that the explanation given by Danone is correct “As Danone point out themselves, they have done their homework well and know very well which products sell more and less well”
10 points for their homework then, but demographics also have a lot of influence on packaging. Professor Breugelmans explains that ”In the Netherlands, people tend to live in smaller homes and cycle more. A pack of biscuits there might only contain 6 biscuits while here there are 8. Also, a supermarket that has many large families among his customer base is more likely to sell multipacks than a shop that targets singles”.
A matter of taste
The answers given above concerning size seem logical, but what about difference in (the prevalence) of flavours between the different countries?
“It is difficult to give a more general answer to that because it is very specific per product. In one country, the average resident's taste palette different to that of the average customer in another country” professor Breugelmans clarifies.
“Robby is probably just unlucky that his taste palette is more in line with that of the French or Germans than it is with that of people in his home country”.