Oser Communications Group

6 SNACKING NEWS August 2018 SNACKING NEWS SNACKING NEWS SNACKING NEWS Snack Food Manufacturers Broaden the Category with New Launches BY LORRIE BAUMANN Snack food manufacturers used the show floor at this year's Sweets and Snacks Expo to showcase how they are using Americans' interest in on-the-go foods as a mandate to explore their own Manifest Destiny. They're carving out new territory for the category with snacks for breakfast, snacks that can go into – and come out of – the gym bag or lunch bag without em- barrassment and snacks that allow extreme indulgence in controlled portions. Cases in point: Hickory Harvest, which makes a line of trail mixes and yogurt-covered snack mixes, launched two breakfast-op- tion trail mixes; Vannry's Snack Bars are vegan, gluten free and bound by balsamic vinegar rather than sugar; mushroom grower Porta Bela launched Shrooms, Shrooms Bars and Shrooms Jerky, all made out of mushrooms; and J&M Foods is bringing out three varieties of individu- ally wrapped Janis & Melanie cookies, packaged eight to a box that will retail for $3.99. Backpackers have been nibbling trail mix with their morning tea since Dick Kelty invented the aluminum-framed rucksack in 1952, and probably for most of that time, they've contented themselves with chomping down the exact same trail mix they planned to eat for the rest of the hike. Well, trail mix has long since es- caped from the wilderness and into the mainstream, and somewhere along the line, a lot of us stopped thinking of it as breakfast food. Hickory Harvest is looking to change that, with its Blueberry Break- fast Blend, one of a new line offered in multi-packs of eight single-serve pack- ages. Each of the six multi-pack snack va- rieties is designed to appeal to the active consumer who wants a healthy snack that can be tossed into a backpack, computer bag, lunch box or gym bag. They're of- fered in Blueberry Breakfast Blend, Cranberry Fitness Mix, Dark Chocolate Almonds, Peanut Butter Mountain Mix, Power Up Java Blend and Very Cherry Vibe. Cheesewich is now offering a breakfast option with its ready-to-eat Bacon N Eggs. The 3.6-ounce package includes two slices of turkey bacon and two hard-boiled eggs for a gluten-free breakfast that offers 16 grams of protein and retails for $2.39. Bauducco, known best for panettone and wafer cookies also has a new better- for-you line of Breakfast Cookies made with whole grains and double the fiber and 15 percent less fat than the market leader. The Breakfast Cookies are offered in two flavors: Milk & Cere- als and Chocolate & Oats, and are packaged in boxes of eight individ- ually wrapped packages. Nutrition information is printed on the front of the box, which retails for $2.99. Vannry's Snack Bars, handmade in small batches in the U.S., are tar- geted to the nutrition-conscious con- sumer who wants to see a short ingredient list on the label. Offered in nine varieties, they're vegan and gluten-free, and only the varieties that contain chocolate include added sugar other than the reduced balsamic vinegar that's used to bind the ingredients together into a bar. The chocolate for the varieties that contain it is made in-house and sweet- ened with coconut sugar to ensure that no animal products have sneaked in through the sugar re- fining process, says Founder Linda Kim. Varieties include Al- mond + Seeds, Jalapeño Almonds + Seeds, Chocolate + Almonds + Seeds, Chickpeas + Seeds, Jalapeño Chickpea + Seeds, Chocolate + Chickpeas + Seeds, Coconut + Seeds, Jalapeño Coconut + Seeds and Chocolate + Coconut + Seeds. Each individually wrapped bar is a serving that offers 160 to 250 calories, depending on variety, with weights ranging from 1.25 to 1.36 ounces. They retail for $3.49. Shrooms is a new brand of flavored mushroom chips, jerky, clusters and snack bars offered by Porta Bela, which has been growing mush- rooms for 80 years. In its initial launch, the chips come in Origi- nal, Mediterranean Sea Salt, Smokey Bar- becue, Fire Roasted Jalapeño, Vermont White Cheddar and Pizza Slice. The Shrooms Jerky is naturally flavored with honey and chipotle, Shrooms Clusters come in a Wild Harvest variety that com- bines mushrooms with berries and honey, and Shrooms Bars are offered in three va- rieties: Crispy Mushrooms & Maple Syrup; Crispy Mushrooms, Fruit, Honey & Sea Salt; and Crispy Mushrooms and Lemon. The Chips, Jerky and Clusters are sold in 2.5-ounce packages. The Shrooms Bars are packaged with four individually wrapped bars per box. Shrooms are low fat, rich in minerals and Vitamin D and a good source of pro- tein. The Jerky retails for $5.99, the Shrooms Clusters for $3.99 and the Chips for $4.99. The box of four bars retails for $3.99. From the Ground Up is another new brand with a serving of vegetables in every 1-ounce serving of the crackers or pretzels. Cauliflower Crackers come in Cheddar, Nacho and Sea Salt flavors, and Cauli- flower Pretzels are offered in Orig- inal Sticks and Original Twists. Cheddar Cauli- flower Crackers are offered in both 4- ounce box and a 1- ounce bag, while the Nacho and Sea Salt vari- eties are currently offered only in the 4-ounce box. Original Cauliflower Pret- zels Sticks are offered in ei- ther a 4.5-ounce bag or a 1-ounce bag, and Original Cauliflower Pretzels Twists are offered in the 4.5-ounce bag. The ChocOat family of products from Finnish producer Goodio straddles the line between indul- gence and healthy for both people and planet with bean-to- bar chocolate bars that combine organic and dairy-free chocolate with Finnish gluten-free oats. The company says it's the Finnish oats that create the smooth, velvety taste of the candy bars and that the ingredients are environmentally friendly and respon- sibly produced by trusted farmers. There are four varieties of the bars, which are sweetened with coconut palm sugar and contain no nuts: Original Blond Chocolate, Sweet Licorice Chocolate, Cool Mint Chocolate and Wild Blueberry Chocolate. The bars retail for $2.99. Justin's is also walking that line between healthy for people and planet and indulgent pleasure with its new Dark Chocolate Almond But- ter Cups and Dark Chocolate Cashew But- ter Cups. Packaged in a 230-calorie single serving of two nut butter cups per pack, they retail for $2.29. They join a line that had already included Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, and White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups in 2-packs that are shipped in a stand-up caddy that holds 12 and Dark Chocolate Mini Peanut Butter Cups and Milk Chocolate Mini Peanut Butter Cups offered in 4.7-ounce stand-up bags. Justin's is also offer- ing White Chocolate Mini Peanut Butter Cups in the 4.7-ounce stand-up bag new for 2018. All of the nut butter cups are or- ganic, and Justin's focuses on using domestic, high- quality ingredients sourced as sustainably as possible, and the company focuses on social respon- sibility by supporting a variety of non-profit or- ganizations with product donations, mon- etary support and regular volunteer hours. J&M Foods is launching its new Janis & Melanie Soft-Baked Cookies in three va- rieties, all individually wrapped so they're easy to pop into a lunch box. They come in Brownie Cookies, Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies. The cookies are 3 inches in diameter with about 130 calories per cookie, and a box of eight retails for $3.99. Solidly on the side of pleas- urable indulgence with great potential as a confection gift is Griff's Toffee, which won two sofi Awards in this year's com- petition. Named after Griff Graves, the late husband of Griff's Toffee Founder Karen Graves and the father of com- pany President Mark Graves, Griff's Toffee is offered in two flavors: Griff's Coffee Toffee and Griff's Pecan Toffee. The candy is crispy, but it's not a tooth-breaker, and the flavor is luxuriously buttery. The toffees are offered in both 2-ounce and 7-ounce box sizes. n

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