Store-Next figures show Remedia now has a 6% share of the baby formula market.
The “Yediot Ahronot” daily reports that sales of Remedia’s dairy baby formula have recovered slightly, reaching a 7.4% market share in the last week of November. Store-Next furnished the figures, based on actual sales at 500 private stores, including supermarkets and private chains. Since Remedia’s non-dairy baby formula formerly accounted for nearly a third of the company’s baby formula sales, however, the elimination of this product from the market has kept its overall baby formula market share at 6%. Materna has a 48% market share, and Promedico 46%, with its Similac and Isomil brand names.
Remedia sales plummeted when three babies died, and many more were hospitalized, after drinking Remedia's non-dairy formula. The formula, supplied by German company Humana, was found to be deficient in Vitamin B1.
Remedia’s recovery from the crisis was particularly prominent in baby cereals sales, in which the company was the market leader with a 63% market share before the crisis. At its low point in the second week of November, Remedia’s share of this market plunged to 28%, but recovered to 36% last week. Materna’s share of this market rose from 16.1% before the crisis to 37.1% in the last week of November.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on December 4, 2003