Cadbury’s Dairy Milk pushes Tayto crisps out of top five best-selling brands

For the ninth year in a row, Coca-Cola has topped the rankings as the biggest selling brand in Irish grocery, retaining its position at the top of the annual Checkout Top 100 Brands report.

Milk brand Avonmore follows Coca-Cola in second, with Brennan's bread in third place and Lucozade in fourth. Cadbury Dairy Milk, which places fifth, is the first new entry to the top five since 2009, knocking crisp brand Tayto down one place to sixth. 7Up, Jacobs, Walkers and Danone complete the Top 10.

When it comes to off-trade alcohol brands, Budweiser has retained its position as Ireland’s top brand. Blossom Hill is Ireland’s leading wine brand, Smirnoff is Ireland’s top spirit, and Silk Cut holds on to its position as Ireland’s leading tobacco brand.

Big movers in this year's survey include Innocent, with its juice range rising 23 places since last year to sit in 30th position, one spot behind its closest rival, Tropicana.

Going the other way are Club (soft drinks), which drops three places and out of the top 20, to sit in 21st; Pedigree, down four places to 24th and Red Bull, down four places to 26th.

And the survey points to Ireland’s love of sweets, with a total of 12 confectionery brands featured in the list.

According to Maureen Mooney, commercial director with Nielsen, which produced the report along with Checkout magazine, while big brands traditionally rely on advertising to communicate their brand identity, those at the top increasingly need to be savvier with how they engage with consumers. "Ad spend is a major part of the success of many brands, but if you look at the overall market, ad spend in traditional media has declined a little bit," she explains. "The brands that have been most successful are the ones that have continued to maintain spend, but have also combined that with promotions, new product development and in-store engagement.

“There’s no set formula: some brands are doing a bit of everything in order to come out as a winner; others rely on word of mouth and product quality to gain a foothold.”