You are Nika Bregar, brand director of Vista, Karst Foods' €95 million plant-based brand, just outside Ljubljana. Purchase intent has slipped seven points in six months and a post attacking the brand keeps spreading. Before you commit a single euro of the €14 million budget, you have to put in writing what has turned buyers away.
The situation
It is Tuesday, 2 June 2026. Vista sells plant-based dairy alternatives, snacks and drinks in Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and northern Italy at an 18% premium over mainstream brands. That premium is Karst's profit engine. Yesterday a consumer-watchdog account posted a photo of a Vista carton beside five words, "premium prices, vague green claims", and a page from the audited sustainability report of Polje, the challenger launched in 2021 that sells at mainstream prices.
The May tracker arrived on Friday. Stated purchase intent, the share of category buyers who say they will choose Vista next time, has fallen from 62% to 55%. Polje now stands near 47%. The tracker also scores three impressions out of 100: warmth (liked, means well) 72; competence (makes a good product) 58; morality (is honest) 49.
Karst has spent years on sustainability work it never talked about: regenerative sourcing in the Vipava valley, partly converted packaging lines, water recovery at the Postojna plant. The budget, meanwhile, has gone mostly to general brand advertising, split across four markets and three agencies, and the media agency points out that Polje's name now turns up in feeds where Vista's is rarely seen. Damjan Rus, the sales director, brings his own number: buyers in two of the four markets warn that Vista lines will leave the autumn shelf plan if sales keep softening, and he keeps asking what Vista will do if Polje moves on price.
The finance director, Aleš Novak, has already set the test: intent back above 60% by the autumn review, or the budget is cut by 20% and Vista becomes a mid-tier value line. The autumn launch is thirteen weeks away.