The Danish brand NATURLI’, a subsidiary of the Norwegian group Orkla, has been respected for its 100% plant-based products based on selected organic ingredients since its foundation in 1988. The NATURLI’ range now includes a wide range of vegan foods and beverages, including vegan ice cream, vegan yogurt, and meat alternatives, in addition to its famous butter.
In the past few months, NATURLI’ has successfully built up its own sales department for the food service sector, among other things, and would like to focus even more on this area in the future. The company was also represented at the last ANUGA, the world’s leading trade fair for food and beverages in Cologne, where it presented a number of new product innovations.
We spoke in an interview with Henrik Lund, CEO of NATURLI’ Foods, and wanted to find out more about the current developments in the company.
How was the response to Anuga for NATURLI’?
Positive throughout! There was great interest in our products. Our Vegan Butter and Vegan Ice Cream were particularly in demand. The conclusion is that everyone would buy the plant-based NATURLI’ range if it was right in terms of taste, functionality, and price – this was proof of our concept, where taste comes first and the climate-friendly facts about our products are a positive side effect.
What are your latest product innovations and do you have anything in the pipeline?
The latest innovations are our unsalted, vegan organic butter, which has received many enquiries, especially from Germany. In addition, we now also have our vegan organic butter (salted) as a 1kg product for the catering trade. Last but not least, we would like to mention our low-fat MiniM_lk.
Anuga visitors were also excited about our newly developed double espresso iced coffees in “to go” form, which is based on the four plant proteins oat, almond, soy, and rice to create a similar mouthfeel as known from cow’s milk based coffee drinks. Our brand new OAT BARISTA with PUMPIN SPICE was also a very tasty treat at the fair – when mixed 50/50 with coffee, you get a very enjoyable taste experience. At the moment it is sold out all over Denmark as it is a limited edition and consumers are sending us pictures of buying 8-10 litres of PUMPIN SPICE Barista to stock up at home.
How is the food service division developing for you?
Positive. In the last 18 months, we have set up our own sales department for food service in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Here, the response from the HoReCa industry has been very positive, especially since we can offer vegan products from a single source in various categories.
Again, our vegan organic butter is in high demand – as it is a perfect plant-based alternative for regular butter in all food service applications (brown butter, frying, baking, etc.).
“In Denmark […] the price of butter went through the roof, while we were able to keep our shelf price at a lower level”
We focus heavily on the food service market as we believe that plant-based foods are best received in social settings such as restaurants, cafes, and hotels. Taste is the biggest barrier to attracting more mainstream consumers to plant-based foods, but when people try plant-based foods at home, they experience that Wow moment: “This actually tastes good”.
In which countries are you currently represented with your products, and which countries will you be going to next?
We are represented in Scandinavia, DACH, UK, and recently also in the USA. The focus is currently on expanding our position in these markets and expanding into surrounding EU countries. The Middle East is also a next target for the launch of NATURLI’ Butter – here we have teamed up with a local partner who knows the market and together we will create a good base for NATURLI’.
In which countries do you feel the reluctance to buy plant-based products due to tighter consumer budgets?
In the last 1.5 years, we have felt a change in consumer behaviour in many countries, but this has had both positive and negative effects, keyword inflation. In Denmark, for example, the price of butter went through the roof, while we were able to keep our shelf price at a lower level, which attracted new consumers to NATURLI’ plant-based butter and increased sales by about 30%.
Why should retailers have your range on their shelves?
We are convinced that we have the best vegan butter on the market. Furthermore, current figures show that the rotation of our products is significantly higher compared to competitors! Because we offer taste, functionality, and good price – and because our business is based on data-driven insights and we can help customers with plant-based dairy products and act as a category leader.
How do you support retailers?
We primarily support retailers through our social media channels with over 730,000 followers! We are constantly awake on some channels like Facebook, Instagram and tiktok – the special thing about NATURLI’s channels is that we have an engaged community that wants to interact with us, give us new ideas and insights or sometimes spank us when we take a product out of the range, which is also good – social media has to have a pulse.
Further information: www.naturli-foods.com
