Created in 1958, Guylian makes great tasting chocolates that are unique and delicious with only the finest Belgian chocolate. Here, RLI spends some time with company CEO Tom Snick to discuss how the company is changing to meet a retail world that is in constant flux after two years of disruption.
Born in 1938 in Sint-Niklaas, Guy Foubert married his partner Liliane and the two immortalised their passion for chocolate by creating the Guylian brand by combining their names. In celebration of love and chocolate, the couple created for the first time the Guylian Sea Shell Chocolates that the business is now globally renowned for.
Bought by the Lotte Group in 2010, today the Guylian headquarters are still based in Sint-Niklaas, whilst the company has affiliates in Dusseldorf in Germany, Lisbon in Portugal and Oxford in the UK with more to follow in the coming months and years. They also operate nine Guylian Belgian Chocolate Cafés, four of these are situated across Sydney in Australia, three are positioned throughout Dubai in the UAE and the remaining two are ideally located in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
When discussing the impact of Covid-19 on the chocolate category, current CEO Tom Snick explains that it has vastly affected different countries in different ways. For example in the UK, there was an enormous uplift in the category with significant double-digit growth, whilst in Portugal there was a noticeable drop of chocolate consumption.
“We also knew that from day one of Covid-19 that the world of duty-free would change, but it has changed dramatically,” Snick explains. “First in 2020 it completely collapsed, then last year we reached 25 per cent on 2019 sales and this year we predict it will reach 50 per cent. We estimate it will never get back to 100 per cent because of how much the world has changed. This is something we are working to counteract in other departments because duty-free was an important element of our business and around 20 per cent of our revenue.”
Sydney, Australia
Taking the reins a little over a year ago, Snick has since gone about implementing a completely new strategy that he coined as the five-year plan. This strategy map has consisted of focusing on its four key ranges, its seashell range, its seahorses range, its temptations range and its range of chocolate bars and implementing a retail strategy that begins with zoning in on specific online countries of interest before expanding with a physical presence.
Moving forward, there will be a strong focus on Europe as its key markets are currently in this continent, for example the UK accounts for 15 per cent of total revenue. Following this European growth, the next stage of expansion will involve building the brand in key countries across the world like the US and China. Snick feels these two are the most important locations where they would like to build a presence as additional core countries for Guylian in the future.
“I feel we do not need any additional innovation within the company because as long as the fundamentals are in place, Belgian chocolate is an incredibly well-known item around the world so we want to make sure Guylian is front and centre in this segment with a strong, positive brand image that promotes sustainability and responsible sourcing. From here we will look to increase our shelf presence in the next few years, and then we can go to the next step and the next level.”
The Guylian concept is one of premium chocolate that still utilises the original recipe of the founder and high-quality ingredients to create products that are different in shape and flavour and are incredibly unique. They also continue to have a minimal ecological footprint and they take care of the communities that enable them to make these chocolate gems.
Harnessing the power of social media, the company is developing a new roadmap that will promote the business across multimedia platforms in the four key countries of the UK, Belgium, Germany and Spain, along with smaller operations across the Netherlands and Portugal.
Speaking on the topic of social media, Snick explains that in tandem with social media marketing, television still plays a vital role, particularly for their demographic which focuses on a slightly older target group of 35-55 year olds, and they have a brand new TV campaign which can be seen on all social media platforms this month.
“Within this target group, television is still very much front and centre of our marketing, but of course we complement it with social media and we are setting up influencer programs. We are focusing on a mix of multiple media outlets and a mix of initiatives and personally I believe that the world is not quite ready for a television-free society,” says Snick.
The company is one that has been around for many decades, and this sustained success can be attributed to the brand’s unique, premium product offer of chocolate seashells that utilises a praline filling made from roasted hazelnuts, and the three types of chocolate that they use to give it a marbled coating makes it a one-of-a-kind product that stands out in the industry.
“It is our product that differentiates us in the chocolate world, and in the future we aim to extend our ranges based around this concept of seashell chocolate that focuses on Belgian chocolate with a praline filling created with roasted hazelnuts,” Snick highlights.
Looking to the future, the current CEO says that moving to plastic free packaging is a massive challenge facing the company right now, as currently there is no technology available to make chocolate packaging plastic free.
“Our other challenge is to ensure ingredients are sourced sustainably and responsibly and that we take care of the communities who help to supply us, and that in the future we can move to the packaging that has the most minimal ecological footprint possible,” Snick says.
As we near the end of our time with Tom, he explains that what he and his team have done in the last 12 months is begin the process of building something beautiful by polishing the brand to the level it is now, which means the company has a very significant, relevant and differentiated offer for the consumer and now the real work begins in building the brand to become a global powerhouse.
