Top grocery brands announced

Brand valuation consultancy, Intangible Business, has published its annual league table of the 100 most valuable grocery brands in the UK. 150 of the country's leading grocery brands were analysed using historical sales data and qualitative expert panel data - providing unique insight into each brand's financial contribution and strength in the eyes of the consumer.

The Top 10

1.Coca-Cola £1,164m

2.Warburtons (+1) £516m

3.Cadbury Dairy Milk (-1) £441m

4.Lucozade (+2) £399m

5.Hovis £395

6.Nescafe (-2) £377m

7.Robinsons £333m

8.Andrex £310m

9.Heinz Baked Beanz £264m

10.Pepsi £242m

The report also includes a ranking for countries of origin. The UK, which has 50 brands in the top 100 leads the USA (2), which has 34, and France (3) which has seven. The report also identifies movement amongst brands over the last 12 months. The biggest movers include:

• Warburtons (2) the fastest riser, knocking Cadbury off the No 2 spot with an impressive 24% increase taking its brand value to £516m – breaking the £½bn barrier
• Bakers Petfood (81) although way behind its rival Pedigree, Bakers is far out-performing it – the second fastest mover in the top 100 this year, with a brand value up 20% to £58m.

Other top movers include Uncle Ben’s Rice up 18%, Doritos and Fairy Laundry both up 18%. The brands experiencing the biggest downward shift include:

• Actimel: last year’s best performer is this year’s worst, falling 9 places and 38% in value.
• Birds Eye Frozen Ready Meals: (61) dropped 12 positions and 28% in brand value.
• Cadbury Dairy Milk: (3) hit by product health scares it dropped one position but lost £83m in value (19%) and is worth £441m.

Eleven new entrants have appeared in this year's report. The highest new entrant was Innocent, which appears at 48. Following phenomenal sales growth the brand is now established and worth an impressive £93m.

The top 10 new entrants are:

1. Innocent (48) £93m

2. Danone Activia (52) £84m

3. Oasis (66) £67m

4. Twinnings (70) £64m

5. Highland Spring (79) £59m

6. Baxters Soup (90) £51m

7. Capri Sun (93) £51m

8. Kettle Chips (95) £50m

9. Green & Black’s (97) £49m

10. New Covent Garden Soup (98) £40m

Stuart Whitwell, joint managing director of Intangible Business said: "2007 has been an exciting time for the grocery industry with product health scares such as Salmonella and Bird Flu, and the integration of acquisitions from private equity companies and Premier Foods. Creating this report has once again provided valuable insight into the ups and downs, trends and predictions in the UK's most dynamic industry sector."

Whitwell continues: "Coke extended its lead, Cadbury suffered under health scares from which Bernard Matthews emerged largely unscathed, the Actimel steam train hit the buffers, Innocent debuted in the top 50 and Premier Foods entered the major league for the first time."

Whitwell added: "Innovation has been the key to the best performers and new entrants in 2007 such as Innocent, Warburtons, New Covent Garden Soup and Kettle Chips. Each of these brands have skilfully carved out a niche, increased distribution, invested in their brands and ridden the wave of relevant consumer trends such as health, convenience and provenance. These new brands are really challenging the more established players and, I suspect, attracting their attention as possible acquisition targets in 2008."

To read the full report, click here