It's no great surprise here in Marmaland, but marmalade sales have dropped by 4.4 per cent to £53.9 million in the year to November 2006, according to figures from the market analysts TNS.
That equates to about 441,000 households stopping buying marmalade during the period, on a positive that does leave over 10 million households are still buying our preserve of choice. By contrast, sales of honey rose by 5.7 per cent to £66.9 million and jam by 1.4 per cent to £88.3 million.
What does this mean? Well the figure that is of most interest to us is that 81% of people eating marmalade are over 45 years old. Youngsters are just not buying into marmalade and the manufacturer's seem unable to come up with a solution to this.
Essentially we put a lot of it down to a turf war between Winne The Pooh and Paddington Bear - and sadly Paddington, with his cold, hard stare seems not to have turned up yet.
With a recent returns from Rhubarb and Custard, Noddy and with the ever present Pooh pushing his sweet Honey to the kiddies, surely a return of Michael Bond's genius Peruvian bear would help marmalade's cause - we are pretty sure he would kick Winnie's ass!
And if marmalade manufacturers want some tips to reach that all important 19 - 39 age bracket, then they should drop the Marmalord an email on marmalord@marmaland.com
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