Users of the Uber Eats application could access a virtual store with several Easter items from Nestlé and Garoto with a 35% discount and delivery in less than an hour in some regions in the city of São Paulo.
“Every year I was scheduled in advance to go downtown to buy Easter eggs at wholesale stores, wanting to save as much as I could. With the discount offered by the application, I did the math and concluded that it was worth the effort,” said Stephanie Costa, a consumer who reportedly bought 60 Nestlé and Garoto chocolate eggs at once for herself and her co-workers. “Technology has made it easier for us to avoid the lack of time, especially in a complex city like São Paulo.”
Use of the app intensified as last minute shoppers sought products before Easter Sunday and consumers wanted to avoid traffic congestion, the search for parking spaces, or the queues at stores.
In three weeks sales of Easter eggs Nestlé and Garoto at Uber Eats grew 100% over the same period last year.
Nestle and Garoto also explored other e-commerce opportunities with a number of retailers marketing the Easter items on their e-commerce platforms, including Pão de Açúcar and Extra, Carrefour, Zona Sul, Savegnago, Super Nosso, Mambo, Sonda, Tenda Atacado, Muffato, Bistek and Angeloni.
Nestlé announced plans to acquire Chocolates Garoto in 2002 for aroudn $240m, but the Brazilian competition authority (CADE) vetoed the move in 2004, fearing it would hinder competition in the domestic chocolate market.
Since 2004, Nestle has been the owner of Garoto, but Garoto has operated as a separate manufacturing and administrative operation.
Garoto has around 70 products under brands such as Talento, Baton, and Garoto, including bars, tablets, Easter Eggs, cooking chocolate and powdered chocolate.
Garoto’s net income has grown 167% from 2002 and 2015 and revenues were expected to reach BRL $2.5bn ($767m) in 2016.
Euromonitor International predicts value sales in the Brazil chocolate confectionery market will grow 5% year-on-year to reach BRL 17.7bn ($5.4bn) by 2020.