Competition

The main competition to Ernest Adams is Farmbake, and to a lesser extent; the large, bagged variety of Homebrand, Budget and Griffins’ Chocolate Chippies. Apart from these three there are not really any significant bagged cookie brands.

Farmbake

Farmbake takes most of Ernest Adams sales. This is purely because of branding. Farmbake promote their product as a social, homemade biscuit that is good for all occasions and all ages. It is generally positioned on either eye level or just below which is prime for selling. They have a range of flavours, which mainly target a yum side of biscuits. All their bags are 350g and range in price at different store, these being Countdown $4.39, New world $4.49, Pak n Save $3.86 and the Fix $7.40. These prices being the more high end of the price range which also promotes a sub conscious quality image. 

Farmbake is owned my Arnotts, which is the leading biscuit company in Australia and has been going on for over 144 years. Starting from a small bakery. They promote themselves as very community friendly and their quality produce.

Homebrand

There is very little information on these biscuits apart from the fact that it is only sold at Countdown as they own it, they don’t sell Budget because of this. It is by far the cheapest bagged biscuit for the quantity at $0.84/100g for the 350g bag. It also looks the cheapest, which offers the customer a sense of an honest brand that is all about savings. The brand also offers a 500g bag that works out at $0.70/100g, less than half the price of Griffin’s Chocolate Chippies at $1.59/100g, providing even more value for money.

The biscuits are always on the lowest shelf, at floor level, as with all the other Homebrand products, of which there is a huge range. Homebrand does no promotion whatsoever; it lets the packaging and the price do the talking.

It has had many of its products come out on top against other more expensive brands in multiple product checks of taste, quality and value by Target.

Budget

Budget is owned by Foodstuffs NZ who own New World and PAKn’SAVE along with many other brands such as Pams. Budget is extremely similar to Homebrand so in New World and PAKn’SAVE they don’t sell Homebrand like Countdown doesn’t sell Budget. 

The pack is 350g and sells at  $1.99 at New World and $2.37 at Pak n Save  which is great value for money. The packaging and promotion of budget is very similar to Homebrand, they have very simple packaging and no promotions ‘to ensure cost-savings are passed on to the buyer.’ 

Budget has a huge range of products including a lot of bulk items or large packets, designed to give customers more value for money.

Griffins’ Chocolate Chippies (320g bag)

These biscuits are the closest competitor out of the ‘tray packet’ biscuits who don’t really pose a threat to the bagged biscuits because of small size and high price. This pack consists of two trays rather than the usual one, which still only comes to 320g, compared to the 350g of the bagged biscuits. The pack costs a rather exorbitant $5.09 which is $1.59/100g, almost double that of Ernest Adams.

The pack comes with 32 biscuits, two trays each with 16 biscuits. Compared to the bagged biscuits, such as Ernest Adams and Farmbake, these biscuits are very flat and small. They are also all identical shape and size as opposed to the slight variations of the Ernest Adams biscuits that are marketed as homemade.

The biscuits come from a large range of Cookie Time and Chocolate Chippie cookies with varying sizes of biscuits and packets and are one of the highest selling biscuits in supermarkets. Their target audience is definitely kids who love the high sugar content and chocolate taste.

Griffins’ biscuits have been made solely in New Zealand since the beginning in 1864, 150 years ago and are one of New Zealand’s largest branded food companies.