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SNACKING NEWS SAVORY SEE PAGE 12 & 13 n Up-Market Snacks Attract Consumers n Lakeview Farms Buys Tribe Mediterranean Foods www.snackingnews.com February 2019 Volume 3 • Issue 1 BY ROBIN MATHER Food tribes, perhaps even more than gen- erational divisions, influence how con- sumers choose snacks, say industry observers. Tribes shape the way con- sumers think about food, and about their buying decisions, they say. "Food tribes are exactly why Southern Recipe Small Batch exists," says Mark Singleton, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for Southern Recipe Small Batch, a division of Rudolph Foods, which produces pork rinds. "We saw we weren't getting adoption and pass-down to Gen X and Millennial customers. And we won- dered why." So, Singleton says, he began to peer into the data. "When we started looking at that, we saw that people view their food differ- ently. It's not about an experience, it's Big Food Companies Invest in Small Food Start-Ups BY ROBIN MATHER More and more big food companies are funding food incubators and accelera- tors. A food incubator is typically set up to help start-ups early in their process, while an accelerator aims at companies that already have their ideas and busi- ness models squared away but need help to take the business forward. Both offer mentoring and advice, useful to new products. They also sometimes get first crack at an equity stake in compa- nies that succeed. Mondelez International has launched SnackFutures, which has as one of its mandates to focus on working with start-ups. "Discovering and unleashing innovative ideas in snacking that will Continued on Page 10 Bison Snacks Bringing Buffalo Back to Native Lands BY ROBIN MATHER Since 2007, Tanka – the Lakota word for "a large, or the largest, all-encompassing idea," says Mike Tilsen, President of Na- tive American Natural Foods, has given bright hope to one of the country's poorest populations. For the Oglala Lakota who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in Kyle, South Dakota, Tanka has also come to mean a way forward that provides pride and dig- nity. Pine Ridge is the second largest reserva- tion in the country, comprised of about 2.9 million acres Tilsen, together with Karlene Hunter, Chief Executive Officer and Continued on Page 9 Continued on Page 10 Continued on Page 8 BY ROBIN MATHER A new initiative called WInS (Women in Snacks), meant to increase the ranks of women and people of color in the snacking industry, excites the Chair- woman of SNAC International, a trade association for the industry. Jolie Weber, who's also the Chief Ex- ecutive Officer of Wise Foods in At- lanta, Georgia, says she's been in the industry for 15 years. "But there's very little diversity, whether it's ethnic, gen- der or age. It was a very homogenized industry. I remember feeling very alone when I first joined. As I came into the chairmanship, I wanted to do something for those coming into the industry to help them feel at home." Women are common in middle man- agement, Weber says, "but as you get higher, it hovers between 13 and 15 per- cent. At the top level, we're not very far from other industries. But we have to do more to nurture, attract – and retain – women in this industry." Since the program launched in 2018, there are already measurable improve- ments, according to Weber. "We've been able to move the needle of women in leadership from 13 percent to 23.5 percent," she says. At the 2018 SNAC Executive Leader- ship Forum, held in August in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a record number of women attendees made up an 80 percent rise in female attendance from each of the previous four years. The forum also included three women speakers, the most in the history of the forum. Weber quickly points out, however, WiNS Program Aims to Increase Diversity in Snack Industry Food Tribes Reshaping Shopper Behavior SWEET SEE PAGE 16 n Ice Cream as Performance Art: Humphry Slocombe n Clif Family Napa Valley Launches Bean-to-Bar Chocolates SWEET SHOTS: Jell-O Play SEE PAGE 17 SPECIAL FOCUS: Grab & Go SEE PAGE 18 SAVORY SHOTS: No Cow Energy Bar SEE PAGE 14 entrepreneurs who may know their product but aren't savvy about branding or attracting finance. One of the aims of the corporate incu- bators is to alleviate such pressures by providing ample working space in cer- tified commercial kitchens to budding entrepreneurs. Along the way, the cor- porate sponsors get to see the future of snacks in real time as disruptors create

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