Nabisco remains king of the cookie makers

In the $4.56 billion cookie category, Nabisco is increasing its commanding lead. The maker of Oreos and Fig Newtons was able to grow its business by 6.8% to generate $1.69 billion in sales last year, according to according to Information Resources (IRI), a Chicago-based information company that compiles retail scanner data.

According to the IRI survey, which measures a 52-week period ending August 13, 2000, Nabisco outsold its nearest rival by more than $1 billion and owned an astounding 37% of all cookie sales in the United States. This is great news for Nabisco, which is in the midst of launching a line extension on its Oreo brand (mini Oreos) that promises to be one of the largest marketing efforts the company has ever put forward for a cookie product (see related article). Oreo was the top brand in the survey, selling $522 worth of product and delivering an 11.4% share. Oreo sales were up 8.7%.

Nabisco had both the biggest winning and losing brands in the survey. The company’s Teddy Graham brand really took off in the last 12 months, delivering 97.2% growth and generating $105 million in sales. On the other hand, the previous smash-selling Snackwells brand has gone into a tailspin, declining by 22.6%.

Second place in the IRI survey went to Keebler, which increased its sales by 2.1% to $650 million. Keebler’s market share in the cookie segment was 14 percent. The best news for Keebler was that its top brand, Chips Deluxe, improved 10.2% on the year to rake in $185 million.

Private label cookie sales declined 2% last year, representing $446 million of sales in the category

The vendors that were the biggest gainers for the year were Little Debbie (up 11.9%), Murray DSD Cookies (up 11.7%) and Voortman (up 16.1%).

For supermarket retailers, the good news is that the cookie category sustained solid 3.8% growth last year, the bad news is that they didn’t reap the benefits. Sales for grocers and drug stores remained flat, while mass merchandisers cashed in on the category, claiming a whopping 16.9% increase in sales.

For more scanner data information visit IRI's website www.infores.com.

Edited by David Callahan
Managing Editor, Grocery Central