The Lebensmittelzeitung has named Decocino the top brand of 2021 in the baking ingredients and baking aids category. The reasons are the sustainable brand management and the enormous growth that the brand has achieved in the last two years. The young baking brand receives the coveted award for the first time and is preparing for further market share gains.
Innovation as a recipe for success
"We put our heart and soul into developing new products. We want to keep surprising our customers and make them want to bake," says Rüdiger Settelmeier, co-founder and co-owner, summarizing the brand's recipe for success. The products also have to meet the highest quality standards. After all, baking should be fun, and for that to happen, the recipes have to be successful.
Responses to increased nutritional awareness
In addition, consumers are placing increasing importance on the list of ingredients. Decocino has now largely dispensed with the use of palm oil. The recipe for its best-selling product, fondant, was changed from palm oil to shea butter back in 2016. At the end of 2020, the organic line was expanded. Previously, there were three products with ingredients from controlled organic farming. The selection has now been expanded to include, among other things, colorful sprinkle mixes, coconut flakes in pastel shades and color powder made from vegetable dyes. At the beginning of 2021, Decocino brought the first low-calorie baking mixes and chocolate drops with no added sugar to supermarkets and is in the process of further expanding the product line.
Foolproof ready-made mixes and decorative products
The two new products, buttercream for mixing and VanillaFIX, also contributed significantly to the great growth in 2020. Both products offer hobby bakers completely new possibilities for baking and creatively decorating cakes, tarts, cupcakes and other baked goods. With the buttercream for mixing, classic recipes can be baked without much effort. Preparation is child's play. With food coloring, cocoa, chocolate, fresh fruit, quark, cream cheese and much more, the buttercream can be refined in many ways. Even easier to use and no less versatile is VanillaFIX, which is sauce, cream and ice cream in one. If you whip VanillaFIX with the mixer, you get what is probably the fastest topping for cupcakes and pastries on the market in no time. Frozen overnight, the cream becomes airy soft ice cream.
Products that inspire creativity
"We take the needs of our customers seriously and base our work on them. At the same time, we want to give them new ideas. We want to inspire them so that they can be creative when baking and try out new recipes and decorations. I think it's just too boring in the long run if you're always presented with what you expect and what everyone already knows and has," says Rüdiger Settelmeier. Customers obviously like the philosophy. The brand's sales rose by almost 27 percent from 2018 to 2020, from twelve to 16.4 million euros in 2020. Almost 10 million items were sold in 2020 alone.
collaboration with influencers
Decocino's philosophy also includes constantly showing customers the latest baking trends and giving them baking recipes and ideas for every season and every occasion. With its own social media channels, the very close and long-standing cooperation with Germany's most famous YouTuber Saliha Özcan alias Sally and a large network of active hobby bakers, Decocino does everything it can to inspire people to bake every day and maintains personal contact with the community. "We can communicate directly with customers via social media. We answer every request individually and follow up on suggestions, regardless of whether they come to us by email or as a personal message on Instagram. Sometimes we are also inspired by customers."
Strong sales team
This proximity to the customer is also a feature of sales. Instead of continuing to rely on large agencies, the brand has built up its own national sales team with 22 permanent employees over the last two years. "With our own people, we can provide much better professional and personal advice, right on site, at the point of sale," says Settelmeier, explaining the approach. In concrete terms, this means: well-maintained shelves with a continuously optimized product mix, as well as expert advice from sales staff who are very familiar with their field, and exciting structures such as the grill tables made from recycled wooden pallets last year, which put the products in the spotlight in the supermarket.
The "Top Brand 2021" award
Inspiration, innovation, product quality and communication, plus a well-positioned sales force - this is how Decocino was able to increase sales and buyer reach above average and win the coveted Top Brand 2021 award from Lebensmittelzeitung. The prize is awarded annually to 100 brands, one top brand in each targeted product group. The winning brands are determined on the basis of the representative consumer panel of the Society for Consumer Research in Nuremberg. This continuously records the purchases of 30,000 households in Germany and, as part of the top brands, determines which brand in its product group has had the most buyer growth and the greatest market share growth in the last two years.
"Our thanks for the award naturally go to the organizers, but above all to our many loyal customers. The award encourages us to remain true to our philosophy. We will be bringing many more completely new baking products onto the market," says Settelmeier confidently.
In any case, Decocino is well prepared for further growth. Numerous investments have been made in personnel in recent months. The storage space at the company's location has been doubled, a number of digitization projects have been implemented and a fresh packaging design has been created for the top brand in 2021.
Helmstadt-Bargen, 01.07.2021
