Mars is planning to stop the production of its ready-made soups in Russia, sold under the Gourmania brand.
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According to analysts, the company failed to achieve significant sales despite the multimillion-dollar investments in production and promotion due to the unsuccessful positioning of the brand.
“Mars launched the brand, which was expensive for most of the target audience and did not fit the concept of ready-made fast food”, a source in Mars Russia revealed on the condition of anonymity.
Mars began production of liquid soups in Russia in 2004. The company was unavailable for further comment.
Gourmania is not the first soup brand to exit the Russian market. Earlier, Mars withdrew Uncle Ben’s soups and Unliever ceased sale of Knorr soup.
According to Knorr brand manager Anna Chubrina, Knorr liquid soups were launched in Russia in mid-2000’s but by 2007 Unilever saw that they would not be successful.
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By GlobalData“We realised that this product does not match the tastes of the Russian consumers,” Chubrina commented.
According to Unilever, the Russian market is not ready for such expensive soups that can not compete with traditional Russian alternatives.
