Pladis executive Carlos Canals brought a team in March to Belgium where the company’s Godiva brand was founded nearly 100 years ago with an ambitious goal: Assemble a box of previously unreleased chocolates for sale in its U.S. market by the end of 2024.
“We said, “Guys, we’re coming. Show us what you’ve done in the last year,” said Canals, managing director for Americas at Pladis. “I want to see everything.”
A week later, Canals and his team, which included a marketer, the R&D lead for the Americas and a chef, arrived in Brussels to find 200 different types of confection and chocolates on trays spread across a board room.
While taste and novelty were paramount, the new Heritage Collection had to meet other requirements that could have easily complicated the process. The candies needed to fit into existing trays to get the product to market faster. The collection also needed to display an array of diverse colors, shapes and textures, and it had to include a clean label ingredient list to appeal to consumers and retailers such as Whole Foods.
Five hours later, the team emerged with a nearly complete set of confections and chocolates scheduled to hit U.S. markets in October. The eight- and 15-count box assortments included everything from Lingot D’Or, a hazelnut praline with dark chocolate and roasted hazelnuts wrapped in a gold foil, to Ruby G, a ruby cacao square filled with dark chocolate mousse and biscuit crumbles.
Canals, a CPG veteran with prior stints at companies including Kellogg and Nabisco, said in taking on these and other larger food businesses, Pladis has no choice but to be “agile” and “more comfortable with risk than others.”
Carlos Canals, managing director for Americas at Pladis
Permission granted by Pladis
Pladis, the global confectionery and snack foods company headquartered in London, also owns 106-year-old confection brand Turtles and chocolate and peanut butter pretzel-covered offering Flipz. The brands give Pladis candies that play across a diverse price range, from ultra-premium with Godiva, premium with Turtles and more mainstream with Flipz.
With a presence in three different parts of the price spectrum, Pladis can alter its marketing strategy and pace of innovation in one or more areas depending on the market.
During COVID-19, premium brands like Godiva thrived as people looked to indulge. Now, the inflationary environment has benefited brands such as Flipz. Pladis responded by debuting a peanut butter-covered pretzel in March 2024 that only took four months to develop and launch.
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Permission granted by Pladis
Pladis also can use a brand’s strength in one channel, like Godiva in airports, to push for space for Flipz or Turtles.
Canals said Pladis remains open to acquisitions of more products, but for now, the company remains immersed on growing its existing portfolio.
“The potential of just these three brands in the U.S. is what we’re just focused on,” he said. “We have more upside [with our current portfolio than if we added] more complexity and more brands.”
The growth opportunities for these brands are “massive” through innovation, different pack sizes, store displays and seasonal offerings. Sales for its three brands — nearly $400 million in 2023 — are forecast to reach $1 billion before 2030.
“It’s ambitious, but five years ago” Flipz and Turtles had fewer than $100 million in sales, Canals recalled.
To help grow sales, Pladis plans to release Turtles in raspberry and caramel apple flavors this year to bring younger consumers into the brand.
It’s also eyeing the return of its Flipz State Fair line from 2023 to tap into the growing demand for limited-time offerings. After introducing Churros and Strawberry Shortcake versions of the Flipz last May, a blueberry donut version is among those flavors planned in the coming months.
Canals admitted that while Pladis goes up against larger competitors with deeper pockets and more resources, a major strength of his company is its smaller size. Pladis’ 400 employees have embraced the underdog mindset.
“We’re in a country where we love the underdog. And we’re the underdog,” he said. “We’ve built a culture of people that want a challenge, that want to leave a dent. They want to do something different. How much can you make a dent in Mars? How much can you personally make a dent in Hershey? There is some element of pride in being an underdog.”
