Weet-Bix relaunches in China as customers pay up to $50 a box

Just what is sending the price of Australia’s favourite breakfast cereal through the roof?

China has become the single biggest export market for Weet-Bix. Picture: News Corp Australia.

Such is the twin power of Chinese TV soap operas and the popularity of western-style foods, that when an actress on one of China’s most popular shows grabbed a box of Weet-Bix as she sat down for breakfast it sent sales in Australia’s most popular cereal through the roof.

Much like the insatiable demand for infant milk formula and vitamins, Weet-Bix has become the hot new commodity as ‘daigou’, or Chinese professional shoppers, strip Australian supermarket shelves of cereal boxes with some of their China-based clients prepared to pay as much as $50 a box for Weet-Bix.

It has made China the single biggest export market for Weet-Bix, with the company’s owner Sanitarium on Tuesday launching its next stage of expansion in the region. New branding aims to hook even more Chinese who are turning away from traditional hot breakfasts to more healthy and western-style meals like cereal.

“We featured in a TV show called “Ode to Joy’’ up there in China, and sales moved significantly for us from about April onwards. We have had around a 50 per cent increase in sales from there and we should do another 50 per cent this year,’’ Sanitarium Australia general manager Todd Saunders told The Australian.

The packet of Weet-Bix didn’t appear by chance, of course, on the table of one of the show’s key characters. It was a paid placement, and when the female character chided her male friend for asking for a traditional Chinese breakfast meal like dumpling soup, by saying “I never eat things like that,” she instantly conveyed the sophistication and western values of the humble brick of Weet-Bix.

On sale in China for eight years, Sanitarium will now relabel its cereal as “Nutri-Brex’’ in China to help it stand out from other cereal brands and build on the momentum from consumers opting for healthy foods, especially those sourced from Australia which is prized for its ‘clean and green’ credentials.

“What we have identified over the last few months is the need for us to have some ‘white space’ to pursue our long-term expansion into China, as we compete with products that sound very similar to us in China, namely Weetabix,’’ Mr Saunders said.

“So we now have a distinctive brand asset, Nutri-Brex. It’s a name that we have researched with the Chinese people and it researches well, and we are today launching Nutri-Brex in Sydney with an actress from the Ode to Joy show.

“She is helping launching that product with us and making it clear to the Chinese consumer that what is in the box is exactly the same as what would be in a Weet-Bix box here in Australia.’’

Sanitarium, which is owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, manufactures 2 billion Weet-Bix a year from its Australian and New Zealand factories, with 10 per cent of that volume exported.

Mr Saunders said Weet-Bix was riding the wave of Chinese consumer demand for foods made in Australia.

“We know that Chinese consumers value the Australian way of life and Australian sourced food, so that is something we certainly highlight in all advertising and the fact it is manufactured here in Australia is very important to the Chinese consumer.’’