Soup enjoys a healthy reputation as a meal or meal component among Polish consumers. Versatile, convenient and popular, over half of Poles claim that they eat soup for lunch at home during the week, and a good proportion enjoy it at work. While dry soups have dominated for many years in Poland, they are gradually losing favour to wet soups, which have recently become a symbol for healthier living. As the latter is capturing consumer attention, soup manufacturers are offering bolder innovations in terms of flavours, eating occasions and positioning.
Profi aims to give consumers the taste of their childhood
Capitalising on the growing interest in ready-to-eat soups and the convenience that such products can provide, Profi, a Polish brand of soups, ready meals and savoury spreads, introduced a range of sweet, fruit-based soups in the summer of 2016. This range consists of three varieties, which can be consumed hot or cold: apple soup with cinnamon and noodles, cherry soup with noodles, and forest fruit with noodles. They come under the name Wspomnienie Dzieciństwa (Childhood Memories), which explains the idea behind the flavour and ingredient choice, as well as timing of the summer launch. Traditionally, sweet soups are associated with summer lunch occasions, with children as key consumers in Poland.
However, their popularity has been muted in recent decades, as new soup launches have featured various – often more exotic – flavour upgrades. As Mintel’s Trend Never Say Die explores, updated and revived products can be sold as ‘proven to work’ and appealing to multiple generations, as well as offering the reassurance and charm of tangibility and heritage. Hence, Profi claims that this new launch will “help introduce the traditional sweet soup to a new generation of consumers”.
Sweet flavours open up new on-the-go eating occasions
Furthermore, sweet flavours can help expand prepared soup consumption into snacking occasions. Snacking culture is gaining traction in Poland as consumers are becoming increasingly busy with work and leisure activities. At the same time, the healthier lifestyles of many consumers are boosting demand for nutritious and balanced snacking products. A third of Polish consumers prefer snacks which are healthier (e.g., fruit) than those which are high in fat/sugar (e.g., chocolate bars) and more than a quarter would like to see a wider variety of snacks with a high content of vegetables or fruit. This can bring new opportunities for sweet-flavoured, fruit-based soups in single-serve packaging to explore an on-the-go snacking positioning for busy consumers.
Finally, pairing fruits with vegetable for more unusual flavour propositions is another avenue to explore for soup manufacturers. Although a niche concept across Europe as a whole, recent examples of such an approach include strawberry soup by Skælskør Frugtplantage from Denmark, strawberry gazpacho by Collados from Spain, and M.de Turenne Carrot and Orange Gaspacho from Germany. Often served cold in order to encourage consumers to have soups as a snack, they also mitigate the seasonality of hot soups, which are more often consumed in the colder months.
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Regina Maiseviciute joined Mintel in 2013 as a Food and Drink Analyst for Poland. As a part of the Mintel Food and Drink team, she tracks new innovation, consumer trends and market development activity in Poland. Regina brings over 10 years of experience working in leading market research and strategic analysis agencies, where she has provided insights and strategic recommendations to leading global FMCG organisations and packaging manufacturers, retailers and governmental bodies within Eastern Europe and also globally.
