Nestlé International Travel Retail General Manager Stewart Dryburgh recently had the pleasure of presenting Dubai Duty Free Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Colm McLoughlin and COO Ramesh Cidambi with a Special Recognition Award, highlighting Dubai Duty Free’s significant achievement of being the #1 retail outlet for the KITKAT® brand worldwide (Duty Free or domestic) for the last 20 years.

Presenting the award, Dryburgh said: 'Dubai Duty Free stands out as being consistently the leading KITKAT retailer – not just in duty-free/travel retail but in ALL global outlets – really is a demonstration of what an amazing retail powerhouse it is and we’re delighted to mark our appreciation with this award. In our long-standing and much valued partnership with Dubai Duty Free, it has been instrumental in our industry launch of a number of new KITKAT products including KITKAT Chunky, Singles and, most recently, the added-value KITKAT Senses range. It’s also very timely as Colm comes up to his 50th anniversary in the duty-free industry and we’d like to add our congratulations to this truly remarkable achievement'.

With annual sales of US$2bn plus, Dubai Duty Free retails an extraordinarily wide range of confectionery and food products, with sales in 2018 of US$130.37m (6.47%).

'We sold some 1,620 tonnes of chocolate alone last year, so this category plays an important role in Dubai Duty Free’s product mix,' says Colm McLoughlin. 'KITKAT is a very important and popular brand for us in Dubai and we applaud NITR for their ongoing innovation in keeping the offer new, relevant, and often exclusive. We very much value our close working relationship and are most grateful to receive this award.'