Walker’s Shortbread, the family company from Aberlour nestled within Scotland’s famed Speyside region, successfully relaunched its global travel retail range in 2022 and hints at more to come in 2023, its 125th anniversary year. 

As first revealed on TRBusiness.com, Walker’s Shortbread partnered initially with Dufry, before extending the global travel retail range to several other important duty free operators.

Reflecting on the chief learnings of 2022, Sarah Macaulay, Head of Marketing, Walker’s Shortbread told TRBusiness: “We’ve learned about creating ranges which meet specific customer and consumer needs; delivering on sharing, gifting, sense of place and value opportunities; and how we can bring these ranges to life on shelf. Our aim is to continue this momentum in 2023.

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“Our Walker’s GTR range offers consumers a range of price points: from accessible to more premium. The recovery in outbound travel remains an opportunity for travellers to interact with our brand and through the exclusive range we hope to play a part in the positivity of returning to travel for those consumers who are excited to go places and have experiences they might have missed.”

Travel retail, a key pillar of its business, will enjoy continued support in 2023 via more POS and activations that recognise the power of travel exclusives and sense of place in the channel.

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The shortbread baker renowned for its classic fingers, rounds and petticoat tails, also identifies wellness and personalisation as two key trends to watch and celebrates a significant milestone – its 125th anniversary.

“We kicked off our celebrations – fittingly – on National Shortbread Day on the 6 of January,” commented Macaulay. “This achievement means a huge amount to us as a family business and we have a few things planned for the upcoming year – watch this space.”

This feature first appeared in the TRBusiness January 2023 e-zine.