Dive Brief:
- Snack makers increasingly are innovating around unique and exotic flavors, textures and ingredients, according to Bakery and Snacks.
- Current flavor trends include “smoked” and “burnt” as well as many ethnic flavors including Hispanic, Asian, North African and Jamaican, according to research firm Mintel. Emerging snack ingredients include lentils, pita, chickpeas and sorghum.
- “A snack producer has to be innovative with flavors because people like to experiment around flavor,” Mintel’s director of insight Marcia Mogelonsky told Bakery and Snacks. Since flavor trends do not usually last long, snack producers must be nimble and flexible.
Dive Insight:
Snacking has become one of America’s favorite pastimes. NPD Group research shows while Americans are still consuming three meals a day, many of those meals are smaller to make room for snacking. On average, consumers eat about four to five snack foods a day, according to Datassential's MenuTrends Keynote snacking report. Another recent study found that many millennials intentionally miss meals so they can have a snack.
Snacking is an eating occasion that has been elevated by more sophisticated products and palates. The more unusual the flavor, the more likely it is to capture consumer attention and drive snack purchases, Mintel’s Mogelonsky told Bakery and Snacks.
This is a key reason why so much innovation is happening in the snacking segment today. Even fruits and vegetables as snacks are taking on different formats — from freeze-dried and baked to fried, dried and puffed — in an effort to satisfy consumer desire for unique and different textures.
Ingredients are another area where food manufacturers like to experiment. Mogelonsky points to emerging ingredients like lentils, chickpeas and sorghum. Snack startup Hippeas introduced its line of organic chickpea puffs last year and is poised for growth. Krave recently launched Krave Sticks, which combine ingredients such as beans, herbs and sweet potatoes for an additional nutritional benefit and flavorful snacking experience.
Some snack makers are pushing the envelope with edgy, off-the-wall ingredients. Touting taste and protein benefits, and the fact that 80% of the world eats insects, manufacturers like Bitty, Hotlix and edibleinsects.com are making bugs, worms, and even scorpions available as snack items.
Some of the new snacks hitting the market are likely to be blockbuster hits, others one-hit wonders, and still others horrendous flops. But one thing is for sure. As consumers increasingly turn to snacking, demand for better, healthier and more creative snacking is on the rise. It’s a good idea for food manufacturers to invest in snacking innovation so their brands become forerunners and not forgotten.