Big bottle leads drink sales

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 4

Big bottle leads drink sales

A plastic bottle is preventing flavoured milk from taking a greater share of the summer drink market. The soft drink bottle is the new 1.25 litre size, which appears to have taken over the market since its recent introduction.

“The Press" approached 25 Christchurch dairies yesterday in a bid to gauge the popularity of the two flavoured milk brands, Big M and Zap, against soft drinks and against each other. The makers of both were reluctant to disclose their respective shares of the market.

The most popular milk among the dairies’ customers is chocolate flavoured Big M in the big carton. Some dairy owners said that Zap and Big M were about even in sales, but most gave the lead to the local product. Customers had expressed their preference for Big M for several reasons, said the owners — it was not such a heavy drink as Zap: customers said that Zap had a “burnt" taste; it wak local: it

did not contain preservative (neither does Zap, says its carton and its maker). Mr L. G. Gilray, distribution manager of the Tai Tapu Central Co-operative Dairy Company. Ltd, the local distributor of Zap. said that his company’s figures had shown that the product was selling up to expectation.

"We have no worries at all," he said. Sales figures were "misleading” and “could be taken out of context,” and he would not quote any to “The Press," but sales had been “very good." “We are finding that the two flavoured milks are complementing each other. They are getting sales at the expense of other beverages,” Mr Gilray said. That was partly verified by the dairies, but only at one end of the scale. Milks were taking some sales away from cans and smaller bottles of soft drinks, but the 1.25 litre bottle seemed to be in a class of its own.

“They are going fantastically," said one proprietor, whose comment was echoed by others.

Soft drinks continued to sell well over all, but the milk was making a dent. Families were buying the milk to take home for children, but the main buyers were teen-agers, which would please the makers. The youth market is their target.

"Cans of soft drink are selling best on the really hot days, but ordinarily the milk does well." said another proprietor. A contradiction came from another: "Soft drinks are still well ahead.”

Sales depended on the type of area the dairies were in — for instance, industrial, low income — but the general picture was not difficult to obtain.

Chocolate and strawberry were the most popular milk flavours. Banana was third, and coffee lagged behind. While the dairies consid-

ered that Zap had lost sales ground to Big M. the latter did not receive full marks for distribution.

“They have a distribution problem,” said one. Another complained that milk was delivered within two days of the date-stamp “freshness" expiry date.

“We do not have any problem,” said Mr C. Vining, the marketing manager of Combined Co-operative Distributors, which has been employed by Big M’s maker, the Canterbury Dairy Farmers’ Co-operative, to distribute the milk.

He said that the company tried to deliver milk that had seven days shelf life, al-~ though sometimes only five days was possible. That was still acceptable, he said. He "doubted" that C.C.D. would have delivered milk with only two days shelf life. He had no knowledge of such an event.

"But they can return it. at no cost to them.” he said. The dairv owners said that

when returns had to be made the C.C.D. was helpful.

The Canterbury Dairy Farmers' Co-operative, like its competitor, is playing the success or otherwise of its flavoured milk close to the chest. Mr Vining said that he knew from Dairy Board surveys that Big M was ahead of Zap in Christchurch.

The board was “thrilled" with the sales of Big M. Distributing the milk was a “big job,” and seven ninetonne trucks and two smaller vehicles were now employed on distribution.

One new product that is seemingly not making an impact is the Anchor (New Zealand Co-op. Dairy) juice product, Prime, which comes from Hamilton.

"It might as well be nonexistent. If it doesn’t improve we will stop stocking it,” said one dairy owner. Others believed the Prime was not selling because of its price. Its recommended price is 57c, compared with 30c for the same size small Zap.