Snacking for kids: H&H’s Good Gout to expand China product offering and distribution channels
The French company was acquired by H&H in 2018 and first entered the China market last year.
This year, the firm will launch new products such as new flavoured nut bars, animal-shaped biscuits, chocolate biscuit, yoghurt, and vegetable chips.
Lulu Yan, general manager at Good Gout Asia told NutraIngredients-Asia said the firm saw a growing consumer demand for healthy snacks.
Since its launch in China five months ago, Yan told us, “Good Gout is getting more popular with Chinese consumers. The brand exposure has exceeded 170 million and the online click rate of main promoted product exceeded the industry’s average rate, and offline activity conversion rate reached 28%.”
China’s organic snack market
According to Yan, there are few brands focusing on healthy food for children over three years old, especially in the organic children’s snack market.
“Because of the way we live our lives now and the importance of having nutritious food available at all times, we believe organic children’s snacks will become a major trend in the children’s nutrition market and become one of the strategically segmented categories,” she added.
The market for children’s healthy snacks is projected to hit RMB 48 billion (US$ 7 billion) by 2020 in China.
Distribution channel
This year, the firm will continue to focus on major e-commerce platforms in China including Tmall and JD.com. It is also seeking new opportunities in social e-commerce platforms.
For offline channels, it is currently available in Ole’ Supermarket. “We will further expend into premium supermarkets, such as Walmart’s Sam’s Club China and Alibaba’s Freshippo, as well as premium maternal and baby stores to respond to the changes in the Chinese health market and meet more consumer’s diverse needs,” Yan told us.
In France, it is also growing its offline presence in pharmacy stores. It is currently distributed in premium supermarkets, organic food stores and e-commerce platforms in the country. The firm also launched in Hong Kong and Singapore late last year.
Yan also told us through innovation and communication, Good Gout hopes to increase the awareness of good childhood nutrition in the country.
“In order to understand the true situation and needs of Chinese children, we will partner with third parties, such as authorised child nutrition research institutes to conduct research on the current nutrition situation for children in China, and create a publication about child nutrition with scientific suggestion on daily nutrition, to help people build up recognition of child nutrition from a professional perspective.”
