Sweet and savoury spreads are a household staple among UK consumers, used by 80% and 67%, respectively. The mature market offers little scope for operators to attract new consumers to further drive usage.

While value sales in the market increased by almost 3% over 2012-13, volumes declined by over 1%. Future growth of the category will largely depend on encouraging existing users to trade up, and on developing less common usage occasions such as cooking, baking and snacking further.

This report covers all sweet and savoury spreads that can be used to spread on toast, bread, biscuits and crackers, or to make sandwiches. Savoury dips are also included.

Sweet spreads

• jams, marmalades and honey

• chocolate and nut spreads (eg peanut butter; also includes toffee and marshmallow spreads)

• syrup and treacle

• fruit curds.

Savoury spreads

• yeast, vegetable and meat extracts (eg Bovril, Marmite)

• chilled spreadable pastes and spreads made from meat or fish

• chilled and ambient sandwich spreads and fillers.

Dips

• chilled and ambient savoury dips such as salsa, houmous/ hummus, guacamole, including dip products with accompaniments eg carrot batons etc and toppings eg Mexican food. Excludes dips for meal kits.

Excluded

• sales through foodservice and catering outlets such as cafés, restaurants and canteens

• soft cheese and cheese spreads such as Philadelphia and Dairylea triangles, Primula (covered in Mintel’s Cheese – UK, October 2013)

• relish (discussed in Mintel’s Table Sauces and Seasonings – UK, December 2013)

• pâtés are excluded from the market size, although they are discussed in consumer research.

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Value figures throughout this report are at retail selling prices (rsp) unless stated otherwise. Market sizes at constant 2013 prices are devised using Mintel’s food deflator.