Confectionery industry comprises companies that produce, manufacture to distribute and supply to retail and to wholesalers the confectionery products that range from chocolate to non-chocolate candies, in addition they produce products such as savory snacks, nuts, chips, fruit syrups, chewing gums, ice cream and frozen desserts, cookies, cakes, pastries and many other varieties of sweet food products. The confectionery foods range also include jams, jellies and other preserves, marshmallows, nut brittles, toffees, mints and other non-chocolate candies. Confectionery products are mainly sold majorly in retail stores and the retail channels such as supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, candy stores, and store chains owned by the manufacturing companies, clubs, bakeries, movie theaters, kiosks, terminals, warehouses, internet, cafe and coffeehouses.

The confectionery industry has been growing increasingly since the recovery started from the global recession during the last decade, and the emerging markets have benefited immensely from this change. The 5 top confectionery industry's emerging markets include Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Confectionery products are sold in a massive scale during peak times of every year such as holidays and occasions such as Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Hanukkah, and Christmas. The confectionery products are mainly presented as welcome gifts and many use for self-indulgences and the five top emerging markets have shown a tremendous increase in demand and scale of production compared to other established markets. The emerging 5 markets contributed over $22 billion to the global confectionery industry's value in 2011 and the growth is expected to be at the rate of CAGR 5% and the value to be expected to reach is over $28 billion by the end of 2016. Brazil is the leading market in the confectionery industry with revenues to be accounted for over $8 billion in 2011, followed by China and Mexico with the value of over $7 billion and $3 billion respectively. Brazil is expected to grow to the tune of over $11 billion by the end of 2016 and China and Mexico to be followed with $9.5 billion and $3.5 billion respectively.

2 . Current Market Trends in Confectionery Industry

The global confectionery industry has been innovative and strategic when the businesses are proving to be highly profitable and beneficial for many entrants to emerge from all over. There have been numerous concerns over health and nutritional supplements that confectionery products contain and provide, so the industry has been innovating with various new products often and has been producing some of the improved and better quality foods. Since then, the confectionery wholesaling is growing and the results are expected to be fruitful over the next five years. Population growth and in turn increased consumption from urban population, the positive factors have caused the industry to flourish to produce new innovative foods, introduced healthier confectionery goods and improved packaging solution.

The confectionery foods wholesaling industry on the other hand is moderately concentrated as the top four players accounted for 64% of industry revenue in 2012. These four major player manufacturers contain sales branches and offices, which are confectionery producers with distribution divisions of their own. These major players continuously expand their distribution networks as their revenue growth is directly linked with retailers and bypass the middleman, causing concentration to increase over the past five years.

3 . Major Players In Confectionery Industry

Major plays in the confectionery industry includes, Kraft Foods Co, Mars Inc, Nestle, Ferrero Group, Hershey Foods Corp, and Perfetti.