Oser Communications Group

9 October 2018 SNACKING NEWS SNACKING NEWS to 23, that Mintel is tracking — for part of that explosion in interest. "The younger people are, the more they gravitate to plant-based foods," says Bill Glaser, Chief Executive Officer and co- Founder of Outstanding Foods, which launched its Pig Out Pigless Bacon Chips in September. "Gen Z and Millennials are more apt to experiment — and they love salty, crunchy types of snacks. If you can add health benefits, all the better. To reach that market, having such an in- novative product can get them to try other plant-based prod- ucts." Pig Out chips are made from mushrooms, Glaser says. "These whole-ingredient mushrooms are loaded with antioxidants, they're anti-bac- terial and anti-microbial, and there's lovastatin, which low- ers cholesterol, in the mush- rooms." The health properties are not depleted in cooking, he says. Pig Out chips come in a full-sized bag, comparable to a bag of potato chips, with 3.5 ounces of chips in the bag and a suggested retail price of $4.99. A one-ounce serving has 160 calo- ries. Glaser says Pig Out chips will be stocked with potato chips and corn chips. "We did not want to be shelved with kale chips or coconut chips," he says. Packaged Facts says vegetable snacks like Pig Out chips are the most popular of the alternative-ingredient snacks, with 45 percent of the dollar sales in that category. The category includes vegetable chips such as Terra Chips and Plant-Based Snacks Continued from Page 1 dried vegetable crisps such as Harvest Snaps. But pulse snacks, such as the chickpea-based The Good Bean, Hip- peas and Biena Snacks, have seen sales growth of more than 150 percent in the year ending in October 2016, Packaged Facts says. Plant-Based for Health – and the Environment "The vegan trend is growing, and more and more Millennials don't want to eat an- imal products," says Helena Lumme, Co- Founder of Hälsa, a line of oat-based drinkable yogurts manufactured in New York from imported organic Swedish oats. Hälsa boasts that it's made from simple, clean ingredients. "It's a lifestyle choice as well. The population, as it's getting more diverse, there are more people who are lactose-intolerant. That's also something that increases with age – we are less and less tolerant of milk sugars as we age. So, many people want to reduce the amount of dairy products they eat, but a lot of the non-dairy yogurts include gelling agents or carrageenan. Ours does not." made with whole-grain oats, it's fortified with probi- otic and gut health bacteria, and has a sug- gested retail price of $2.99 for an eight-ounce bottle. Hälsa is available in four flavors – Mango Pear, Apple Cinnamon, Strawberry and Blueberry. Made with The company now has a plain flavor yogurt in develop- ment to use as a base for smoothies, and should have it ready to release later this year or in the first quarter of 2019. Lumme and her company are betting that consumer interest in non-dairy yo- gurts will continue to grow. Products such as non- dairy yogurt have wide appeal across all ages. HealthFocus Interna- tional, a marketing and research agency based in St. Petersburg, Florida, reports that 60 percent of consumers ages 15 to 70 say they're cutting back on meat products, and 55 percent say that change is permanent. Another 22 percent say they hope the change is permanent. HealthFocus's Steven Walton says that, as manufacturers improve taste, convenience, availability and price, the segment will continue to grow. "The entry points are multiple … and core to consumer beliefs, motivations, lifestyles and interests," he says. "Oppor- tunity for growth and new products [in plant-based foods] is strong, and we are in for an exciting time." While healthy snacks may have once meant dutifully chowing down on some- thing flavorless and boring, that's no longer the case, says Robbie Rech, co- Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Hope Foods, which makes hummuses. Today's snacks are not only full of fla- vor, he says, they're also full of all the things that consumers seek for healthy eating. Flavor is key if snack makers want to succeed in a competitive market, however. Nikki Azzara, Founder of P.S. Snacks, a line of bean-based edible cookie dough treats manufactured in Brooklyn, New York, says her company's mission is to create something familiar, by using plant- based, nutrient-dense ingredients to make a healthier alternative. "Taste has to be a factor," she says. "All this innovation shows that you can enjoy something that is plant-based, and you won't even really know the differ- ence." P.S. Snacks has six SKUs – three flavors in either 12-ounce cartons or three-ounce individual portions "comparable to apple- sauce or yogurt," she says. The snacks have a suggested retail price of $7.99 for the 12-ounce cartons, and $2.69 for the three-ounce portion packs, sold in the grab-and-go cold deli counter. "People are seeing how shifting their diets to consuming more nutrient-dense products is better for their health," Azzara says. "They're also seeing that it's better for the environment." Glaser agrees with Azzara. "People are trying to add more plant-based foods to their diet — for their own health, for the welfare of animals, and for the envi- ronment," he says. "The tastiest foods are found in the snack aisle, and snack foods offer the convenience of trying something without a big commitment. Plant-based snacks open the door; they offer a gateway to trying other plant- based products." n food landscape over the past 35 years has changed from people wanting to embrace Americanness to people wanting to em- brace a global flavor profile. People want more authenticity from their multicultural food when they're going outside their own culture." These shifts in flavor preferences aren't generational. "It's not just Millennial and Gen Z," Robinson says. "America has changed so much over the past 35 or 40 years – no- body wants to live on meat and potatoes anymore. People want spice, they want sweet. Think about Lay's, and how they've changed up their chips. It used to be that you could get regular, barbecue and maybe sour cream-and-onion. Now they offer chicken-and-waffle, sriracha – all kinds of flavor combinations. That speaks of the diversity of experience, and the desire for authenticity in flavor across the board – for all age demographics and all populations." He notes that, in Chicago, he sees chips that used to be considered to have a multi- cultural flavor profile now displayed with the main grocery items. "I'm thinking of Gatorade, which used to have tamarind and melon flavors that were clearly aimed at Hispanic customers. Now those same fla- vors are clearly positioned in the cooler with the rest of the Gatorade products." Practically speaking, Hispanic cus- tomers drive the multicultural market, ac- cording to statistics from NPD's Retail Tracking Service. "After years of being in the doldrums, U.S. retail spending showed a significant uptick in the first quarter of 2018, and Hispanic communities are a key contributor," NPD says. Hispanic and Asian customers spend more than six percent of their income on food outside the home, says the U.S. Bu- reau of Labor Statistic's Consumer Expen- diture Survey. African-American and White customers spend just over five per- cent of their income that way. Rick Perra, a consultant whose expertise is the Hispanic market, says the things re- tailers do to attract their Hispanic cus- tomers will also attract all customers. "By 2020, more than 50 percent of youth will be multicultural, and one-fifth of kids will be Hispanic," he says. Perra, who said he lived in South Amer- ica for many years, says retailers have two "need stakes" – to provide a taste of home for their customers, and to know their cus- tomers' cultural traditions. One thing that's different about multi- cultural customers, says fluent360's Robinson, is that, "Retailers need to re- member that multicultural consumers may be traveling farther to get to these stores, so it doesn't do anything to stock smaller packaging – it's better to stock larger sizes." But retailers shouldn't forget that their multicultural customers are also members of their generation and make buying deci- sions in the same way their peers in other market segments do, says Perra. Millen- nial multicultural customers will shop like Millennials everywhere. n Fresh Thinking Continued from Page 1 from Latin America – all of South Amer- ica and some people from English- and French-speaking countries in the Caribbean. One is linguistic; the other is geographic." As a Cultural Anthropologist for the agency, Richardson says, his job is to ad- vise clients on how to reach all those dif- ferent kinds of customers effectively. "One of the keys is that your multicul- tural customers don't live a life separate from your total market customers," he says. "Separating the products you think they'll want from your mainstream prod- ucts can make them feel exotic and unac- cepted." For that reason, he says, retailers should shelve products that will interest multicultural customers with similar prod- ucts that mainstream customers seek. Total market customers' tastes have changed as America has changed over the last several decades, he says. "Overall, the

• Cover