Michael Goodhew, Marketing Manager at Parmalat Australia, discusses the company’s achievements in rolling out a stream of LGG® products satisfying the full range of consumers.

Parmalat Australia Ltd is a member of the Parmalat Group, headquartered in Italy and recently acquired by French dairy company Lactalis. The acquisition makes Lactalis the world’s biggest dairy company. Parmalat Australia is the country’s second largest fresh dairy company by market share and focuses on creating strong national brands in the white milk, modified milk, flavoured milk beverage, yoghurt and dessert categories.

Who buys what types of yoghurt and why

Yoghurt is consumed in more than 80% of Australian households, where its primary purchase and consumption motivation is as a healthy, tasty snack. Around half of yoghurt consumers are female, and given that in a family it’s primarily women who make the food purchases, they have a significant influence over the yoghurt consumption of their partner and children.

More than half of sales volumes are stirred yoghurts with different levels of fat and containing sugar and fruit preparations. A quarter of total sales are traditional yoghurts including the emerging growth segment of deli-style and artisanal products. Children’s and Top Health yoghurts make up the rest of the market with a share of around 10% each.

Parmalat makes yoghurts for all and leads in Top Health

Parmalat sells a range of successful yoghurt brands including value added Vaalia probiotic yoghurts, a category the company has pioneered for the past decade. Vaalia has 75% of the Top Health market delivered with the brand promise of delicious health – yoghurts that are better for you as well as thick, creamy and full of flavour. There are Vaalia products for all members of the family, conferring health benefits across the demographic from adults to children and toddlers.

Vaalia makes it hard to hide when you’re happy inside!

The Vaalia brand stands for energy and vitality, focusing on how the benefits of a healthy digestive system impact how you feel rather than simply offering probiotic ingredients. The brand also projects a lifestyle message that conveys an essential emotional appeal.

Vaalia attracts consumers who want a healthier lifestyle but won’t compromise on taste. They feel happier inside and out through our unique trio of feelgood probiotic cultures, including the world’s most researched probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG together with acidophilus and bifidus. Vaalia is the only yoghurt in Australia to contain this unique blend of three active cultures in just the right quantities to keep your digestive system in great shape.

Marketing Manager Michael Goodhew with Vaalia yoghurt in single cups, and thinking big with Vaalia Innergy daily dose bottles!

Vaalia Innergy – top up with LGG®, the clinically proven probiotic

LGG® in Australia is available exclusively in Vaalia yoghurts, and the new Vaalia Innergy brand contains around ten times the amount to strengthen the body’s natural defences.

Vaalia Innergy delivers an immune health benefit unique to its local market, creating a new segment that will increase consumption of Parmalat Australia’s yoghurt based products and is helping to reinforce the health credentials of the Vaalia brand as a whole. In extending Vaalia from digestive health to immune health, Parmalat is continuing to educate consumers about the health benefits of probiotics and LGG® in particular.

Backing up the health claim

While Australian consumers have not yet fully engaged with the concept of different probiotic strains, this low awareness means that the special value of the LGG® ingredient lies in our ability to make the unique trio a concept that resonates.

Food manufacturers making successful health benefit claims for their products in Australia must hold all the evidence supporting their claims and be able to produce it if required by the relevant food standards authorities or consumer protection agencies.

Vaalia and healthy children

Vaalia has partnered with Australia’s leading child health research centre, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, to support their ground-breaking work on the causes of and treatments for childhood illnesses. In doing so, Vaalia continues to cement its status as a health brand and reminds yoghurt purchasers, often mothers, that Vaalia is serious about health and happiness.

www.vaalia.com.au