New Covent Garden looks to relaunch and strengthen dominance

The Daniels Group subsidiary is launching a new family pack size, new variants, improved recipes and new limited editions – and renewing its sponsorship of the popular early evening ITV series, Britain’s Best Dish.

New Covent Garden Group Marketing Director Nigel Parrott says the £1.5 million investment will act as a ‘major stimulus’ to New Covent Garden soup which is currently growing at almost twice the rate of any other fresh soup brand and clearly maintaining its market leadership position.

The New Covent Garden brand is in double digit growth (10.3%), commanding a 49% share of the UK’s £109 million fresh soup market (Source: IRI 52 w/e June 14 ’08.)

New Covent Garden is broadening the appeal of its soup brand with the launch of its first ever range of 1kg, four-portion family packs (rsp £2.99p). Initially the 1kg range will comprise two variants, Plum Tomato & Mascarpone and Winter Vegetable.

At the other end of the scale, New Covent Garden is targeting the single serve market by launching one of its best-selling 600g soups, Plum Tomato and Basil, in a 300g pack format, targeting the lunchtime market.

MAKING GOOD SOUP GREAT – 2

The company is also adding value to the category with the launch of a new premium 600g recipe, Thai Chicken Fusion, with an rsp of £2.39.

In addition, New Covent Garden is adding five new variants to its 600g core range. They are Root Vegetable & Rosemary, Mediterranean Vegetable & Herb, Chicken Mulligatawny, Thai Vegetable and the company’s first ever Scottish recipe, Cock-a-Leekie.

Alongside the range extension, New Covent Garden has improved the product quality of many of its most popular 600g lines which will carry an ‘Even Better Recipe’ flash on-pack.

“The brand development programme is wide-ranging and will be under-pinned by a continuation of what we do best - creating simple soups from simple recipes that feature innovative flavour combinations,” says Nigel Parrott.

“The emphasis on NPD and product quality improvements will broaden the appeal of New Covent Garden soup as we maintain our market leadership position by making our good soups great.”