Yoghurt consumption is Bulgaria has been the highest in Easter Europe for more than a decade and this is expected to continue well into the coming years. Yoghurt is not only popular for meals and snacking but for cooking as well and it is part of the everyday Bulgarian diet. While the plain spoonable yoghurt market is already in its mature state there is still room for growth for the non-plain yoghurts such as fruited, flavoured and drinkable.

In 2012 overall yoghurt value sales in Bulgaria increased by 3% to reach BGN262 million. Drinking yoghurt and spoonable yoghurt sales saw very different results with the first outperforming the latter both in value and volume terms mainly because the plain spoonable yoghurt market has reached maturity and it is considered a staple food for many Bulgarians, thus the segment remains to be the most popular in 2012 accounting for 87% of total yoghurt value sales. The per capita consumption of  these products in 2012 stood at 16 kg per capita, which is a good indicator for the products’ popularity among consumers especially since all other categories of yoghurt such as fruited, flavoured or drinking yoghurts all showed under 1kg per capita consumption in the same year. Drinking yoghurt is on the rise as most producers support their new launches strongly with commercials and other media presence. 

Note: retail selling price, current prices. Data for 2013-2016 is a forecast

Source: Euromonitor International

The steady volume growth of drinking yoghurt was largely driven by various versions of products because they are consumed by workers and students with breakfast along with use in the kitchen for cooking purposes.

This year is expected to show similar results in terms of overall yoghurt value sales, while in volume terms we are expecting drinking yoghurt to continue its steady growth and spoonable yoghurt sales to stabilize.

Drinking yoghurt value sales in 2012 reached BGN6 million or 2% of the total yoghurt sales. Although the percentage of drinking yoghurt appears minor when compared to the spoonable variants mainly due to the fact that many families buy yoghurt and dilute it with water to make their own drinking variant. The commercially prepared regular drinking yoghurt is purchased along with snacks or on the go, while the pre/probiotic products and the flavoured regular drinking yoghurts are bought by the young consumers in urban areas.

When it comes to the competitive environment within yoghurt in 2012 Danone Serdika AD was leader with a share of 30% from value sales and the company is expected to maintain this share in 2013. Obedinena Mlechna Kompania AD (OMK) came in second with 14% value share. Danone’s brand Na Baba and OMK’s Vereya account for the majority of these companies’ sales. The success for both companies lies in the fact that they have managed to build national distribution for their products, offer competitive prices and products which fit the local taste.

Note:  % breakdown by retail value

Source: Euromonitor International

Danone continues to develop new products with launching the Za Men line in June 2013, targeted exclusively at men with the highest fat content on the market at 5%. The market continues to evolve in the more specialized segments, within plain pro/pre biotic yoghurt there was a new company entry – in the spring of 2013 by Proviti AD which launched its first yoghurt products under Veda Bulgarica brand name. Bor Chvor EOOD expanded into pro/prebotic yoghurt and launched a health and wellness driven product under its umbrella Bor Chvor brand. Activia was extended with Superfuits range of two new tastes: dragon fruit and kiwi and blueberry and aronia.

From 2014 to 2018, the yoghurt market is expected to bring lower value growth, as compared to the 2009-2013 period. The reason is the increasing competition in the yoghurt market and the expansion of companies in related segments bringing overall prices down. The biggest segment of yoghurt, plain spoonable yoghurt has little room for volume growth as producers exhaust their possibilities to segment the market. Currently the market is segmented according to fat content and production methods which mean that opportunities for further differentiation remain limited although there is room to expand the market in terms of fat content, especially as recipes from different countries become more popular in Bulgaria. An example would be Tsatsiki which is made with very high fat content yoghurt.

Emerging categories such as flavoured and fruited spoonable yoghurt are forecasted to perform better than plain yoghurt, and there are numerous possibilities for portfolio expansion with new flavours in these two categories especially as consumers more and more prefer to snack on dairy-based products instead of unhealthy alternatives. Also, it is expected that Bulgarians will prefer to purchase smaller packages for out of home consumption at lunch, which will give rise to packaging developments within the portfolios of the leading companies.

Zsofia Megyeri

research analyst

Euromonitor International