Are you offering new, healthier products?
Through innovation we are investing in the development of new products within every category to provide consumers with choice and we are also renovating many of our products to meet changing needs. This includes lower calorie and new sweetener options. 30% of our confectionery and 70% of our gums are now either low calorie or sugar free.
- In our US market, consumers tell us they want a wider range of diet beverages; six out of ten of the top non-cola diet brands in this market now belong to us.
- In India, in response to interest in child nutrition, our fortified beverage, Bournvita provides nutritional advice to mothers.
- In Central America, we have responded to local concerns about oral care by launching Trident Xtracare with Recaldent gum to improve dental health in these countries.
Our responsiveness to our consumers' needs is what drives investment in product innovation. Some consumers simply want more choice; others want more and healthier choices. We are focusing on increasing investment into the development of new products to provide consumers with healthier choices and increasing the use of natural ingredients.
Innovation
We believe that identifying consumer needs and innovating our products to address these needs is an important driver of our growth. In 2004 we undertook a new Global Consumer Segmentation study and in 2005 we launched Building Commercial Cpaabilities, our people development programme, at a combined cost of over £15 million. Together these give us a common method of analysing what our consumers want and common tools and processes for developing our brands and products.
We have set an internal stretch target for 2007 of 15% of our sales to come from innovation, an increase from our 2005 innovation to sales ratio of 10%, and up from 6% in 2003.