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SNACKING NEWS 4 SNACKING NEWS August 2018 WWW.SNACKINGNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann EDITOR Robin Mather ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeanie Catron Greg Gonzales JoEllen Lowry ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS Caitlyn McGrath Susan Stein DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green subscriptions@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Snacking News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. Snacking News is published bi-monthly by Oser Communications Group, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715; 520.721.1300. Publisher as- sumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. 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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Snacking News, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. Here's Great News, Past and Future, for Snacking Retailers There's probably never been a better time to be a snacking retailer than right now. Unless, maybe, it's the future. By now, we all know that Millennials have changed the snacking landscape. Members of that generation snack three to four times a day, sometimes or often use snacks as meal replacements, and want their questions answered about the prod- ucts they wish to buy. But at the Sweets and Snacks Expo in Chicago, Illinois, and at Summer Fancy Food Show in New York, New York, speakers offered some astonishing statis- tics about the inroads snacking has made on food sales. Since 2014, sales of snack foods have risen from $128 billion to $145 billion this year – a $16 billion increase. That rosy news comes from Jordan Rost, Nielsen Vice President of Consumer Insights, who presented them in a talk at Sweets and Snacks. (You can read more of Rost's findings in the story "Insights on the Snack Food Market," which starts on Page 1.) But wait, there's more. Snacks now account for nearly a third (27.6 percent) of specialty food purchases, and five of 13 snacking categories grew faster than 20 percent. That's what David Lockwood, Director of Mintel Consulting, said in his presentation, "The State of the Specialty Food Industry" at the Summer Fancy Food Show. Consumers aren't choosy about the channel they use to buy their snacks and buy their favorites wher- ever they happen to find them, he said. (You can read much more about that in "Snacking Strengthens Specialty Food," which also begins on Page 1.) Baby Boomers like me – who are old enough to begin to fall out of market re- search – were trained to avoid snacks be- tween meals. Doctors, nutritionists and teachers advised us to reach for healthy snacks – a piece of fruit, especially – if we simply had to snack. Back in the day, "snack" usually meant junk food – the void- of-nutrition snacks that seem so quaint in today's more imaginative snack landscape. We're still motivated by health and fruit still tops our snack of choice list, says an NPD study cited in a FONA International report called "Baby Boomers 2018 Trend Insight," but we're snacking for different reasons than Millennials and, presumably, the up-and-coming iGeneration. We see snacking as an indulgence, no matter how healthful. For me, the larger point in all these num- bers and statistics is that, whatever your customers' generation, they've fallen deeply in love with snacking, and that seems to show no sign of slowing. If you want to cater to Millennials and/or iGen customers, lay in a good stock of authentic ethnic snacks. As a retailer, stock those eth- nic snacks with similar mainstream prod- ucts, a suggestion that came from Leslie Johnson, Assortment Manager/Candy, Cake, Bread for Wawa Convenience Stores during a panel discussion at Sweets & Snacks Expo. Make sure those snacks are better-for-you if you want Baby Boomers' bucks. Your hungry customers will find them, you can be sure. Your future looks incredibly cheerful if you're a snacking retailer. Isn't that great news? n FROM THE EDITOR

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