Dare takes ‘made better’ message to the streets

To drive home the message that its candy is “made better,” Dare Candy has launched a candy truck tour.

Consumers in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto can fill up a “treat cone” with samples of five new Dare products: RealJubes in red, black and sour, and two new varieties of RealSours. Dare is also sampling its RealFruit lineup including Superfruit, Tropical and Medley.

Depending on the product, Dare Candy touts attributes such as gluten-free, gelatin-free, fat free, and free of artificial flavours or colours.

“We wanted to get our product portfolio out there and let people see that Dare offers candy that’s made better,” said Deborah Attwood, director of marketing at Dare Foods.

Attwood said Dare Candy had “made better” attributes for many years, but first started using “made better” as a marketing platform in 2014.

As part of its PR push for the sampling tour, Dare conducted a survey into the candy habits of Canadians. Some findings are:

• In Toronto, friends (47%) and love interests (41%) top the list of who they’re most likely to share a sweet with
• 54% of Calgarians prefer to eat one candy flavour at a time
• Millennials are seven times more likely to prefer red over black jubes, while baby boomers are split down the middle
• 71% of Vancouver respondents like to bring candy along for the ride on summer road trips

Working with Ketchum, Dare is promoting the truck tour with social media, including Facebook and Twitter, influencer outreach and public relations.

Canada’s sugar confectionary market (defined as an aggregation of mints, boiled sweets, pastilles, gums, jellies and chews, toffees, caramels, nougat, medicated confectionary, lollipops, liquorice and other sugar confectionary) is valued at $475 million, according to data from Euromonitor, with Dare controlling an estimated 1.6% of the market.

According to the Canadian Sugar Institute, Canadians consume an estimated 51-53 grams of sugar (12-13 teaspoons) per day, representing approximately 11% of their daily caloric consumption.

The group also noted consumption of added sugars – a group including all sugars, corn syrups, honey and maple syrups added to food and beverages – has been declining for 20 years, primarily reflecting a decline in soft drink consumption.

This article originally appeared at CanadianGrocer.com.