A new analysis from YouGov highlights the top-ten-performing UK brands over the past year across key categories in the FMCG sector and includes the best performing alcohol brands in Ireland.
The top ten rankings are based on YouGov BrandIndex’s Index score, which measures a brand’s overall health, calculated by taking the average of our Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Recommend and Reputation metrics. The UK-focused analysis spans frozen food, dried ambient food and snacks.
Chilled/Frozen Food
Data from our recent International/CPG 2021 Report indicates that the consumption of frozen food across Europe surged during the pandemic. But chilled food brands also performed well this year, with cheese brand Cathedral City topping the ranking in this category. One of the brand’s few innovations this year was its sandwich slices but the cheese-maker already has a special place in the heart of UK consumers.
Cathedral City was followed by Nomad Foods-owned Birds Eye, provider of household staples like waffles, fish fingers and peas - at a time when many of us were filling our freezers. Lurpak, Müller and McCain make up the rest of the top five, with the latter well-supported by its Ricky Tomlinson-voiced Little Moments ad campaign in 2020/21.
Dried Ambient Food
Among dried ambient food brands, Heinz Tomato Ketchup claims the top spot, shoring up its position as the nation’s most-loved sauce.
Coming a close second is the UK’s leading breakfast brand, Weetabix, and in third place it’s Yorkshire Tea. The tea brand continues to promote its popular “Where everything’s done proper” campaign featuring actor Sean Bean, during time when a hot cup of tea will have created a much-needed sense of comfort among British consumers.
Heinz claim another top-five spot with their baked Beanz coming in in fourth while Hellmann’s secures fifth spot.
Snacks
Crisps company Walkers ranks as the top performer in the snack food category. Its new restaurant- food-flavoured range – Taste Icons - have been promoted heavily in stores in 2021 while its 100-calorie or less range tapped into an audience of those looking to shed the pounds post-pandemic. Walkers is followed by McVitie’s, Jaffa Cakes, Kettle Chips, and Pringles.
Other notable brands that make it to the top ten this year include Mr Kipling, Mini Cheddars, Jacob’s, Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s.
Alcohol (Ireland)
Beer and cider brands completely dominate the alcohol rankings in Ireland. Irish dry stout Guinness is the best performing alcohol brand in Ireland over the last year and rounding out the top five alcohol brands are two pilsner brands – Heineken and Carlberg – and two cider purveyors – Bulmers Original and Orchard Thieves.
Budwiser, Corona, Kopparberg, Peroni, and Coors Light are other notable alcohol brands that performed well in this Ireland's alcohol ranking this year.
Get in touch to see YouGov's full list of FMCG/CPG Rankings 2021
Methodology: The brands in YouGov FMCG/CPG Rankings were ranked based on their Index score, which is a measure of overall brand health calculated by taking the average of Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Recommend and Reputation over a period of 12 months.
The rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average index score between August 1st 2020 until July 31st 2021. The scores are representative of the general population of adults 18+ (some are online representative).
All scores listed have been rounded to a single decimal place; however, we have used additional precision to assign ranks. All brands must have been tracked for at least six months in order to eligible for inclusion in the rankings.
