On the Street -- Kraft Seeks Growth Through Innovation
August 4/Business Monitor International Ltd. (BMI) -- Like a number of the world's largest food and drink companies, Kraft Foods sees Russia as a crucial long-term growth market. With an emphasis on innovation, it has announced plans to improve and renew its product ranges across the chocolate, biscuit and coffee segments. In BMI's opinion, the global downturn has served to elevate the importance of Russia to global giants like Kraft. A growth slowdown across a number of segments in Western Europe and North America has increased the allure of the high potential Russian market.
Kraft has a strong confectionery business in Russia, and with its planned upgrades in mind, it should be able to take advantage of BMI's forecast that through 2013 confectionery volume sales will increase by 9.3% to reach 2.2 million tons and value sales will increase by 14.3% to reach $5 billion.