Saputo Dairy UK is transitioning packs of Cathedral City Mature and Lighter Mature slices to a larger, Sandwich Slice format, in order to fit better between two slices of bread.

Cathedral City new slices

Cathedral City Sandwich Slices (150g, six slices per pack) are available from mid-April, carrying an rrp of £2. Distinctive new packaging is designed to drive visibility and articulate the unique product benefit clearly on shelf.

Neil Stewart, Cathedral City marketing controller, explains: “The UK is a nation of sandwich-lovers, each of us eating an average of four sandwiches a week and with 8 in 10 lauding the humble sandwich as their favourite lunchtime dish. Cheese remains the nation’s favourite filling (with ham and cheese a close second), and these cheese sandwich occasions are by far the biggest contributor to sliced cheese volume.

“Our consumer research found that the square slices currently on the market aren’t optimised for using with bread; over half of consumers revealing that they have to use 1.5-2 slices of cheese in their sandwich and almost two thirds of our sample telling us they wanted a (cheese) slice that covers the whole slice of bread. As the nation’s favourite cheese brand, our ambition is to bring consumers the ultimate ‘nation’s favourite’ (cheese) sandwich.”

The sliced cheese sector, currently valued at £241m, continues to outperform the total cheese market. Sandwiches remain the dominant occasion, making up 340m sliced cheese occasions, - five times more occasions than burgers- says Saputo Dairy.