Jelly Belly is doubling down on its artisanal image as owner Ferrara positions the jelly bean as a go-to premium offering in the $23 billion non-chocolate candy space.
After years of expanding its flavors to include everything from chocolate pudding to even stinky socks, Jelly Belly is now focusing on premium curation and highlighting the jelly bean as a gourmet tasting experience for consumers.
“[Premium] is a thought-provoking idea, and one that we think there could be real interesting opportunity for us,” said Katie Duffy, vice president of global brands with Ferrara. “This brand has a lot of possibilities of doing things a little bit differently.”
The positioning is a return to form for Jelly Belly, which was introduced in 1976 by sweets maker Herman Goelitz Candy and for years was only available at specialty stores. The brand made a name for itself by becoming the first jelly bean with flavor infused into the center of the candy instead of just the shell.
Today, Jelly Belly is far from the only jelly bean on the market. In recent years, the category has become increasingly crowded as large candy makers, including Hershey’s Jolly Rancher, Mars’ Starburst and Mondelēz’s Sour Patch Kids, bring several of their top-performing brands into the space.
Premium positioning could help Jelly Belly compete and enable sugar candy to close the gap with chocolate, a segment led by higher-end brands such as Godiva and Ghirardelli. Chocolate sales currently exceed sugar candy sales by $6 billion, according to data from the National Confectioners Association.
To emphasize its high-end perch, Ferrara launched signature Jelly Belly collections that feature 10 or 20 flavors representing "the very best of the brand." The company has also rolled out packages with six flavors that are tied to a certain part of the year, place or season, like fall or a tropical paradise.
The company is cutting down high-count assortments of Jelly Belly, including its 49 flavor mixes, after consumers said they felt overwhelmed and inevitably didn’t eat some of the varieties they didn’t like. Jelly Belly will continue to offer its full portfolio of 100 flavors through single-flavor packs, licensed collections and other formats.
There’s also a bigger focus on making Jelly Belly more popular as a gifting option, with special containers — much like boxes of chocolates.
"We have a lot of runway for this brand,” Duffy said. "Flavor is so powerful when you think about different experiences that you have.”
Ferrara’s overhaul also includes tweaking the packaging to make it stand out and launching an advertising campaign, a first for the brand, with the premium-leaning tagline “bean appetite.” Executives hope to boost the appeal of Jelly Belly beyond its core Easter season, deepening the candy’s association with the premium segment and helping to grab the attention of retailers and consumers.
So far, the early results are promising. Jelly Belly is experiencing “strong loyalty gains,” with buyers purchasing the brand nearly 10% more often year over year.
“We really took a look at all of the pieces and parts of the portfolio and said this makes sense, this doesn't make sense,” Duffy said. “We're still on that journey to figure out what the future should look like for Jelly Belly, but the portfolio optimization that we put forward today is like a giant first step.”
