Polarbröd: Market Entry Strategy for a Bakery Brand in Europe
Client
PolarbrödClient overview:
Polarbröd is a Swedish bakery group with more than 100 years of heritage, best known for its soft flatbreads (“polar bread”) sold through retail and foodservice channels. Based in Älvsbyn, the company is one of Sweden’s leading bread producers, with distribution across the Nordic region and industry customers throughout Europe.
The company’s business strategy centers on resilient, sustainable production and brand-led growth. Polarbröd focuses on efficient and flexible operations, guided by strong sustainability principles, and utilizes frozen logistics to ensure freshness, minimize waste, and facilitate international expansion.
Challenge:
Polarbröd sought to understand the market potential and entry opportunities in Europe. Civitta supported the client with an opportunity sizing and competitive landscape study, designed to clarify where and how Polarbröd could best position its products. The analysis covered market size and growth, key competitors, category dynamics, and channel performance across major retail formats (traditional, hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience).
Given limited hard data for the niche flatbread segment, our research and strategy work combined insights from local category experts and industry-specific sources, complemented by on-site retail analytics – including shelf and product placement assessments – conducted during store visits across leading stores. The analysis covered market dynamics, consumer preferences, and competitor benchmarks (brands and private label), as well as high-level route-to-market and positioning options.
Findings were cross-validated with internal company information and public and commercial databases to ensure accuracy and depth, resulting in clear recommendations on market understanding and estimating the market potential for Polarbröd.
Our Approach:
Phase I:
Opportunity Sizing and Competitive Landscape
- Conducted a bottom-up market analysis of the overall baked goods category to understand broader consumption patterns and growth dynamics across channels (hyper/supermarkets, convenience, e-commerce) and product types (bread, pastries and cakes, frozen goods).
- Deep-dived into the soft flatbread segment to assess its size, growth potential, and competitive landscape in detail.
- Benchmarked leading brands and private labels on assortment, pricing, and purchase criteria to identify unmet consumer needs and potential white spaces.
- Defined potential space for Swedish soft flatbreads and estimated potential for this market niche.
Phase II:
Go-to-Market Investigation and Partner Engagement
- Assessed on a high-level retailer readiness and operational processes for handling bread category (delivery, storage, shelves, returns).
- Conducted targeted outreach to priority distributors and co-manufacturers to test interest and assess collaboration potential.
Services provided:
- Opportunity sizing and category mapping for a European bread market
- Competitive benchmarking (brands & private label)
- Qualitative interviews with buyers, distributors, and bakery experts; in-store visits
- High level retailer readiness assessment and bread-handling process mapping
- Initial outreach to major retailers to evaluate potential interest
Results & Impact:
Polarbröd gained an understanding of the baked goods landscape in the relevant market, including key consumption patterns, growth drivers, and competitive dynamics, as well as a view of the flatbread niche.
Additionally, through the outreach of key market players, the company also has a general idea of the initial interest in such products. The study provided visibility into the market potential and entry feasibility, while early outreach to local partners offered an initial test of commercial interest.
Testimonials:
“Through our collaboration with Civitta, Polarbröd obtained a clearer view of the market and the competitive environment. The project provided useful data and initial feedback from local partners, which will help inform our future decisions.”
– Jenny Höber, Marketing Area Manager Export, Polarbröd AB
”The project was about turning data and field research into actionable market insights. For Polarbröd, we helped clarify the real growth opportunities and challenges in the market to support confident international expansion decisions.”
– Margarita Petrichenko, Manager, Civitta Sweden
