Supporting AAK growth strategy | from market insights to operational footprint

AAK, a global market leader in the oils & fats business, has an extensive solutions portfolio used in a wide array of (food) products. Headquartered in Sweden, the company partners with producers to supply them with tailored and refined oil and fat solutions.

AAK’s ambition to consolidate and strengthen its strong market position led them to refresh and rethink their European growth strategy. The goals of the new European growth strategy were:

1. Understand addressable markets and position
2. Articulate new growth ambition and (required) key capabilities to realise this ambition
3. Define initiatives and resources that enable AAK to realize ambition
4. Synthesize outcomes, assess impact and make choices
5. Channel organisational resources towards the most impactful plans & implement

Specific market intelligence was required in order to understand the addressable market and AAK’s market position. As AAK supplies solutions to manufacturers, market intelligence on production volumes was needed. In particular, production volumes for consumer product categories.

Production data is highly challenging to obtain and generally not available at databrokers and in market and research reports. Partnering with Hammer on this topic turned out to be the solution for AAK.

‘We wanted to verify and improve our understanding of European vegetable oils & fats market within identified food industries in Europe. The market sizing and forecasting performed by Hammer was very useful in our strategy work to define the growth ambition and focus areas for the coming years.’
‍Rasa Moorthamer – Product Management Director Europe

‍A unique data collection strategy

To overcome the challenges arising in the market assessment, Hammer and AAK collaboratively designed an extensive, fact-based market sizing methodology. This methodology is grounded in a combination of:

• Consumer data (B2C retail & OOH)
• Trade statistics (import & export figures)
• Contextual data (news items, reports, journals)
• Expert interviews (industry professionals)

The collaboration started by segmenting AAK’s markets into distinct segments and sub-segments, for which custom data collection strategies were defined. Essential to the approach were the iterative feedback sessions with key stakeholders, ensuring alignment on definitions and market sizes. Through combining bits and pieces of data, market volumes and growth figures were successfully obtained for sub-segments in all countries in scope. Hammer also identified key producers across European countries who not only represented (potential) clients for AAK but also validated the market size bottom-up.

Increased understanding of the business environment

The project resulted in the delivery of approximately 20.000 raw data points. Hammer also enriched AAK's database with details on more than 3.000 key producers in Europe. Using this input AAK was able to craft a model that seizes addressable markets, market shares and clear view of AAK’s position.

Market-driven data supports portfolio decisions and capacity utilization

The partnership between AAK and Hammer showcases the power of combining deep industry knowledge with sharp market insights. With the data and insights derived from this project, AAK is better equipped to monitor, grow and innovate in the European market. Solid market intelligence is in place to support portfolio decisions and improve performance in different market segments.

‘I truly enjoyed professional and thorough work from the entire Hammer team side, as well as pleasant and on time communication’.
‍Rasa Moorthamer, Product Management Director Europe