Pladis
appears to be readying its McVitie’s and Jacob’s brands for healthier
treatments. It has applied to register the brand name ‘McVitie’s Zero’ and a
logo for ‘Jacob’s Bites’ with the Intellectual Property Office under class 30,
covering biscuits and wafers for the former, and crackers and crispbreads for
the latter. A spokesman for Pladis claimed McVitie’s Zero related to a reduced
sugar Digestives biscuit available in Turkey, which “we currently have no
plans to launch elsewhere”. “We routinely trademark our brand names in
territories around the world,” he said. On Jacob’s Bites, he said: “We don’t
have any news to share at this stage. Like all companies, as part of our
planning process we trademark brand names from time to time, sometimes
speculatively.” However, Pladis has spent recent years developing
HFSS-compliant spin-offs for both brands. It debuted Rich Tea Delights and Wholesense
Digestives – each boasting 30% less sugar than their standard counterparts
– in 2022. Both were relaunched under ‘The Light One’ banner in 2023, bringing
in £7.1m and £2.2m respectively By
comparison, value sales of traditional Rich Tea biscuits came to £31.5m over
the period, while original Digestives raked in £56.0m. For Jacob’s, meanwhile,
Pladis reformulated Crinklys to make it HFSS-compliant last July. It claimed
the Cheese & Onion variant was the second-highest retail value sales launch
of 2023 in non-HFSS.
McVities Zero 