German fruit yogurt market cools

The German market for standard fruit yogurts, and some of the wellness yogurt products, appears to be losing sales steadily. The main reasons, according to the Nielsen market survey company, are firstly the massive range of innovative yogurt products (such as flavoured drinks) now on offer. Secondly, adverse publicity questioning the effectiveness of many wellness products is hurting sales in this sector. Already in January of this year the country’s financial newspaper Handelsblatt reported a 13% drop in sales January to October 2011 for Danone’s Activia yogurt drink with income from another of the French firm’s dairy health products Actimel reckoned to be down by 12%.

At that time Fruchtzwerg children’s fruit yogurt from Danone was also reported to have lost turnover in Germany. But this trend isn’t confined to Danone. Throughout 2011 and into the first quarter of this year most brands of the more conventional fruit yogurts in the German market have been affected, says Nielsen. In total turnover for this category through 2011 was down 2.6% on the year. In fact, it appears that well known dairy brands came off rather worse than this because sales of own label yogurts were down much less than the total figure – and nowadays in Germany these represent some 70% of the entire market.