Ulster Grocer - Yellow Fats

Ulster Marketing Surveys In conjunction with Ulster Grocer, May 2000

Over the last 20 years the food sector which has undergone perhaps the most dramatic transformation has been the “yellow fats” market. The intense focus of the health lobby led to the development of what is now a vast range of products and brands, intensely competing to offer various health, taste, and pricing propositions.

In order to find out some of the key factors relating to brand choice, Ulster Marketing Surveys interviewed a cross-section of 207 housekeepers by telephone, between the 10th and 12th May 2000. At the outset, an overall assessment of the brand used most for everyday purposes revealed the dominance of 2 brands offering very different propositions:- Golden Cow and Flora, each accounting for the brand choice of around 3 Northern Ireland housekeepers in 10. (Golden Cow includes the Easispread and Lite versions: if the Golden Cow brands Churn and Golden Olive are included, then the Golden Cow ‘house’ accounts for 35% of housekeepers.) The Dromona label (inclusive of Country Gold and Crown), emerged with a clear 3rd place, the choice of 12%. Most brands in this sector tend to have names that are redolent of rural values, and over the last 3 or 4 years, some brands have been introduced with radical departures from this nomenclature in an attempt to challenge the consumer’s perceptions, and to “stand out” in this very competitive arena. In Northern Ireland, these brands appear to have made significant, but limited progress, Utterly Butterly being the choice of 4% of housewives, and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, the choice of 1%.

The traditional “yellow fat” of course is pure butter, and whereas this product has now been widely supplanted by a range of lower fat products, it is interesting to note that it nevertheless remains the main product of 39% of households, with 61% using one of a variety of 'spreads', some of which contain a proportion of butter. This preference for butter is age related, and remains a majority choice of those housekeepers aged 55+. Nevertheless, the usage of butter by one-third of younger housewives (16 - 34), suggests that although the share of butter may yet show some further retrenchment, the market may now be stabilizing.

When it came to asking these housewives what were the main factors underlying their choice of brand, it was interesting to note that despite the intense publicity concerning health issues, flavour and taste remain the prominent issue in Northern Ireland. The next 2 most important criteria are ease of spreading, and a low fat / low calorie content.

As an approach to gauging how volatile the market is with regard to brand choice, it was found that 15% of shoppers said that they had switched brands in the past 12 months, thus providing an indicator of the 'churn' rate in the market. It was further interesting to observe that butter users are rather more loyal to their brand than are users of spreads.

This volatility in spreads was further enforced by the finding that the fat and calorie content was the reason most frequently expressed as underlying a switch in brand.

Last but not least, the predominant position of Tesco’s as a yellow fats retailer in Northern Ireland emerged very visibly, cited by 36% of these housewives as the location where they would buy most of their butter or spreads. The other 'multiples' in the form of Safeway, Sainsbury’s, Dunnes and Iceland, accounted for a further 29%, which means that some two-thirds of Northern Ireland housekeepers buy their yellow fats from one or other of the multiples.