Many big brands from around the world are coming to realise that gaining ground in the coveted China consumer market requires far more than just good products but also localised innovations.
Bakery giant McVitie’s has emerged as the latest in a line of such enlightened food brands, and has opted to develop much more localised products outside of its traditional biscuit portfolio in order to increase its presence in China.
“McVitie’s may be famous for biscuits, but its next phase of growth will not come from biscuits alone,” said pladis CCO David Murray.
“As we grow internationally, we’re looking at how the McVitie’s brand can play a bigger role across snacking, reaching new consumers through new products and formats. We’re building McVitie’s for its next chapter of growth and China is an important milestone on that journey.”
McVitie’s is best-known for its Digestives biscuits not only in home ground UK and Europe, but also in most Asian markets where it has presence in. In China, it uses the brand name 麦维他 and its best-performing product is also Digestives, but thus far it has not gained significant success over other local biscuit brands based on this range alone.
But as pladis looks to grow McVitie’s into a GBP1bn (US$1.4bn) international brand, the company has made it plain that China is an important market in this quest, and it is willing to step out conventional boundaries to make local growth happen.
“China is a strategically important market for pladis, with one of the world’s largest and most dynamic snacking audiences,” pladis APAC MD Manoj Loya added.
“Consumers here are highly engaged with new flavours, formats and digital shopping channels, which makes China a natural place to build the next phase of McVitie’s growth.”
As part of this strategy, McVitie’s has launched a China-focused new local range called McVitie’s Flipz, combining the McVitie’s branding with the Flipz chocolate-coated pretzel format.
The format has been localised to China’s snacking habits to come as smaller, bite-sized pretzels, and the range will initially be available in three flavours targeting local market tastes: matcha honey, lemon Basque cheesecake and chocolate hazelnut.
“Developing McVitie’s Flipz around local tastes, local channels and local snacking habits allows us to create a proposition designed for China from the outset,” Loya said.
“It is an important strategic opportunity for McVitie’s and for pladis as we continue to grow our brands across Asia.”
McVitie’s Flipz will be initially sold China Tier 1 cities Shanghai and Guangzhou, as the brand looks to develop its own distinct position in the market.
The value of localisation in China
In recent years, more and more international brands have implemented localisation strategies as crucial tools to capturing the Chinese consumer market, gradually moving away from the previous mindset of trying to market products that had previous success in other, Western markets.
Several examples have come from beverage heavyweight Coca-Cola in China, where the company has launched various China-localised products for the market such as Sprite+Tea and Coca-Cola Prebiotic Soda — and this strategy has already been shown to generate significant sales success.
This is reflective of wider Asian consumer trends, so much so that even premium alcohol brands like Martell have been embarking on the localisation route in the region, and many bakery and snacking brands are also doing the same.
China does however remain a prime target for many international brands because unlocking this market means unlocking a large amount of value at one shot: China is currently the world’s third-largest biscuit market behind the United States and Brazil, and the sweet biscuit market alone is worth around EUR5bn (US$6.78bn).
“China is one of the world’s most exciting snacking markets and we’ve developed this range around local tastes and shopping habits because we believe long-term success comes from understanding what consumers want, not simply exporting products that work elsewhere,” Murray added.
“It represents an attractive white-space opportunity for pladis: a market of significant scale where McVitie’s can combine international brand recognition with products developed around local consumer tastes, channels and occasions.”
McVitie’s Flipz will be manufactured locally and retailed on major e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com and Douyin, as well as offline retail partners such as Costco, Metro, RT-Mart, Lawson and FamilyMart.
“The initial rollout in Shanghai and Guangzhou will be followed by expansion into additional Chinese cities in 2027, and we already have more markets and products in the pipeline,” he said.
