A HUGE amount of snap, crackle and pop has been injected into the business efforts of York-based Teamwork Marketing.

The organisation, on the Chessington Park industrial estate at Dunnington, has been awarded a contract to handle advertising and marketing for Kellogg's Food Services - a deal believed to be worth around £500,000.

Even as Teamwork Marketing thrashes out a strategy for a September launch of an advertising and marketing push to earn Kellogg's a bigger share of the catering and wholesaling sector, its numbers of account executives to handle the project have increased by three with two more being taken on later. This will bring the Teamwork Marketing payroll to 57.

The marketing firm won the pitch on the basis of its experience - nearly 20 years in the foodservice sector with clients such as Nestl, Sara Lee and RHM Foodservice.

Chris Doyle, head of marketing at Kellogg's Food Services Manchester office, said: "Kellogg's has an outstanding reputation for its marketing activity and it was important to us in developing our presence in the foodservice marketplace that we had the support of an agency with the experience and skills to cover every aspect of our business - from promotions to direct marketing."

Teamwork Marketing spokesperson Anni Johnson said that caterers, wholesalers, newsagents and the vending machine market would be targeted for Kellogg's breakfast and snacking brands. "Research shows that by the year 2020 about 50 per cent of the market will be 'out of home' - that is sales that do not arise in the supermarket."

PICTURE: The Snap, Crackle and Pop characters from a packet of Kellogg's Rice Krispies