KANSAS CITY — Picking a snack today is more of a choose-your-own-adventure situation as retail aisles are inundated with a plethora of options. Consumers can go in many directions, including savory, sweet, spicy or soft. But there is one category consumers continue to choose: crunchy.
Crunchy snack innovation was showcased at this year’s Winter Fancy Food Show, held Jan. 21-23 in Las Vegas.
“With annual sales of $6.1 billion, crunchy snacks are the top-selling specialty food category,” said Denise Purcell, vice president of resource development for the Specialty Foods Association. “We are seeing new grains and more seeds being explored in this space, along with new shapes and unique formats.”
Snacking is on the rise and the trend is expected to grow as winter months transition to the fast-paced tempo of spring and summer.
Americans typically don’t have enough time to prepare and enjoy meals, leading to 35% of consumers surveyed to report they are integrating their favorite snacks into meals, which is up from previous years, according to the fifth annual US Snack Index by Frito-Lay North America and The Quaker Oats Co., both of which are subsidiaries of PepsiCo, Inc. The index also found that 51% of Americans “yearn” for a specific snack and 44% of Americans are too busy to cook, with 83% of millennials and 82% of Gen Z are most likely to embrace the tile of being a “snack savant.”
“While our most recent Snack Index confirms that time is scarce, the data also reinforces that consumers are fiercely passionate about their food preferences,” said Denise Lefebvre, senior vice president of research and development for PepsiCo Foods.
