Page 57 - RW-APRIL-2021

The widening world of HEALTH & BEAUTY With the pandemic causing disruptions across many FMCG sectors, one category that customers have turned to, looking to improve their wellbeing, is health and beauty. Retail World takes a look inside medicine and beauty cupboards to learn about the latest trends impacting the category and to find out what the coming months have in store. By Margaret Mielczarek. A VÖOST for VMS Established in 2013 by Managing Director Thomas Siebel and his business partner, VitaminHaus, the company behind the VÖOST brand of vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS), began in response to “a gap in the effervescent supplement market for a selection of products that offered true width of range”, says VÖOST General Manager Marketing and Business Development Samantha Hilleard. “Tom (Siebel) engaged the help of a well-respected Australian naturopath and a manufacturer in Germany to develop a selection of five effervescent products: vitamin B, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and multivitamin,” she said. “It was then that the VÖOST brand was born. “Since then, the product portfolio has expanded to 44 products and the brand has gone from strength to strength with distribution across all major retailers throughout Australia and a rapidly growing range in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore.” Perhaps not surprisingly given the outbreak of Covid-19, Ms Hilleard says VÖOST has achieved “significant growth” over the past few years, especially in 2020, which brought “a sharp increase in consumer demand for immunity products”. “VÖOST was actually the number one brand in growth across the entire VMS category, up 48 per cent on \\\[the previous year\\\],” she said, quoting IRI Data (IRI, Total VMS Category Growth MAT 11/10/20). However, Ms Hilleard says that while VÖOST sales increased substantially in 2020, “the VMS category in itself has had quite a tough year”, down 4.8 per cent overall on the previous year. “A few brands weathered the storm really well, while others have clearly experienced negative impacts on their businesses from Covid-19, whether on their retail sales, supply chain or otherwise,” she said. With the rising demand for immunity- focused products over the past 12 months, Ms Hilleard says the company “fast-tracked a new VÖOST immunity range, which has just launched (or is just about to) in Woolworths, Coles and Chemist Warehouse”. “This formulation works to help support the immune system and is comprised of high-strength 1000mg vitamin C as well as 10mg zinc,” she said. “We’ve released this new product in both a blackcurrant and a zest orange flavour.” “In addition to this, we recently launched our first ever children’s products, which we’ve been considering for some time. We finally decided to take the leap due to an overwhelming number of customer and retailer requests. “The two products we’ve entered this sub-category with are Kids Multivitamin and Kids Immunity. This range took a long time to develop as we were very conscious of wanting parents to feel really comfortable giving this to their children. We’re incredibly proud of the final products, which don’t contain any added sugar, have no artificial flavours and, importantly, they taste great. This new range is suitable for children aged TO PAGE 56 APR, 2021 RETAIL WORLD 55 wellness