First ever Kettle Brand National TV Campaign to start Sunday

Diamond Foods, Inc. (Nasdaq:DMND) today announced that the first ever television campaign for the Kettle Brand will launch on Sunday, October 16th during Sunday Night Football and will also air during the opening game of the World Series on Wednesday, October 19th.

This campaign is the latest in a long history of investment in brand building by the company across its portfolio including Diamond of California, Emerald, Pop Secret and Kettle Brand. The investments have helped drive growth of the brands all of which are growing faster than their categories in the most recent Nielsen scanning period ended October 1, 2011.

In snack nuts, Emerald achieved 12.3 percent dollar share with growth of 33.7 percent, which is more than eight times faster than the category. This growth does not reflect recent significant expansion of the brand in the mass merchandiser channel.

In microwave popcorn, Pop Secret achieved a 29 percent dollar share of the category, which is the highest share reached since Diamond took full control of the brand in February of 2009. In the most recent twelve week period, Pop Secret grew 5.5 percent, outgrowing the category by 730 basis points.

In potato chips, the Kettle Brand grew 3.1 percent on top of double digit growth in the comparable period a year ago. The category grew at 2.4 percent in the most recent scanning period and Kettle dollar share was 3.4 percent.

In culinary nuts, the Diamond brand grew 3.2 percent, outpacing the category which grew at 1.2 percent. The Diamond brand maintained its market share leadership position with 27.8 percent dollar share, which is twelve times greater than the next largest branded competitor.

"We are very pleased with the strong performance of all of our brands as well as expanded distribution and footprint in the mass merchandiser channel, which is important for future growth in our snack portfolio,"said Andrew Burke, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Diamond Foods. "With this growth, we believe we are seeing the benefits of our brand investments and look forward to launching the Kettle campaign to support that brand with all of our trading partners."

Source: Diamond Foods