Upcoming edition: Almond Conference – Interview with president and CEO of the Almond Board

The Clipper: Back to the business: your marketing budget, about 67% of the overall budget was lowered 24% for 2019 and another 17% in 2020.

Richard Waycott: Look, that’s an estimate. There were two reasons for it. One is, obviously, we increased our spending, we had more money, and now we have to decrease. Our projections for production volume – you know, with the assessment of three cents per pound – did not increase as we expected it would. We have expected that with the crop 2021/2022 crop we would be at 3 billion pounds, but this will not materialize. Our projections have brought back to reality. We still have a very robust budget. The budget for this year (2019) is still higher as before the assessment increase. The decrease by 17% in 2020 will happen or will not. It depends on the crop size.  The real message is: we invested as we expected to and we will do some adjustments and we will start to recoup as production increases.

The Clipper: We saw a sharp increase in spending promotion money in Germany. But, in fact, we didn’t see it. We never saw the Almond Board being active in TV.

Richard Waycott: That’s true. We spent some money in TV, in in-store activities, a fully integrated trade promotion. We went there in March and we had many, many excellent contacts throughout the year. Consumption is going up, especially in Germany. You know, these are longterm programs. In the German retail trade  it is not easy to change their habits, even though we made a very logical offer to the German public: it’s a healthy snack, it’s a natural food product, not contaminated.

The Clipper: The retail trade in Germany is not that flexible.Richard Waycott: They are very, very big – and powerful…

Read more in the next edition of The Clipper Magazine!