Oser Communications Group

6 SNACKING NEWS February 2019 Up-Market Snacks Attract Consumers BY ROBIN MATHER Growing numbers of consumers not only want clean-label snacks, they want snacks made with higher quality ingredients than ever before. They still crave crisp chips and crunchy crackers, but they increas- ingly seek products made with top-shelf ingredients. "We've made the leap because we can," says Nancy Kalish, the Founder and CEO of Rule Breaker Snacks, based in Brook- lyn, New York. In addition to making snacks, she counts herself among those consumers looking for high-quality snacks. "We've become more sophisti- cated, with the internet and its wealth of health information. Our consciousness about what we put into our bodies has been raised." She points out that consumer demand for such snacks has driven makers to produce them, and that they're easy to find these days. "We're finding many more options that are in synch with that raised consciousness. There are really a lot of better-for- you options that are not hard to find, and that look and taste just as de- licious as the not-so-good-for-you options. So it's an easy switch." Kalish's Rule Breaker Snacks makes 1.9-ounce individually wrapped Brownies and Blondies that are shelf-stable with a one-year shelf life and a suggested retail price of $1.99. The treats are made with chickpea flour, which allows them to be la- beled gluten free, preservative free and non-GMO. Pouches of Brownie and Blondie Bites will be introduced later this year, she said. Taking a Long View Philip Kosak has been in the snack busi- ness for nearly 40 years. As the Founder of Carolina Fine Snacks, based in Greens- boro, North Carolina, he remembers the very beginnings of the better-for-you snack market. "Back in the '80s, the early players in the better-for-you segment were veggie chips and veggie straws," he says. "Now that's a billion dollar segment in the snack market." The reason is that "consumers have be- come much more sophisticated, both in their interests and in their tastes, Kosak says. "Millennials have driven a lot of that, starting and creating an intriguing environment for exploratory purchasing. Today, many interesting things are avail- able on the market, but they're not nec- essarily what the market wants." He cites oft-repeated studies that show that what consumers say they want and what they actually eat are often two different things. Kosak's company makes Wicked Crisps, using new technology that allows the company to produce a vegetable crisp quite different from those manufactured in the early 1980s. "We learned how to incor- porate vegetables into a product that in- cludes all the organoleptics consumers want in snacks," he says. "We can take spray-dried vegetables, reconstitute them into a dough, and then bake them. We can use ingredients that much more closely re- semble consumers' interests." Wicked Crisps offer 4 grams of plant- based protein per serving. Their color and flavor come from the vegetables, and be- cause they're baked, Kosak says, "We're eliminating the fat that's part of the guilt of potato chips. We can incorporate any vegetable and any fruit with this process." Women-Targeted Products on the Rise Darby Johnson, who lives in Los Ange- les, California, says her own needs prompted her to found Apres, a com- pany that makes post-workout drinks for women. "This isn't Muscle Milk," she says, noting that women seek dif- ferent products for their post-workout replenishment than their male counter- parts do. "I spent a year and a half in re- search and development, working on the edges of science on this one," she says. "It's made with organic plant pro- tein, organic coconut oil and organic coconut water." Individual 11-ounce recyclable Tetrapak bottles of Apres have a sug- gested retail price of $4.95. Each has 160 to 180 calories, 13 to 14 grams of plant- based protein from peas and chia, and 6 grams of coconut sugar. The product comes in three flavors: Sea Salt Chocolate, Vanilla and Cold- brew Coffee, which has 95 mg caffeine, from organic cold brew coffee. When the product launched in November, 2017, it was marked through direct-to-consumer sales and through fit- ness studios, she says. "We are starting to scale into retail now, and the product is doing very well." She credits educated consumers for her successes. "Consumers are really educa- tion themselves and, in turn, are demand- ing more. You're seeing a ton of innovation from small companies like us because the big guys can't innovate like we can. But they're buying up smaller companies, because they know what res- onates with consumers." The modern wellness consumer skews heavily female, is very active, and is look- ing for ingredients that are good for her body, Johnson says. "We get a lot of cus- tomer emails – I read every one -- and comments on our Instagram posts. They say things like, 'We can really tell how much detail there's been in how this prod- uct has been built.' That means a lot to me." Using Creative Ingredients in Fresh Ways At Cherryvale Farms, also based in Los Angeles, California, the company's new line of Love It! Bars uses raisin paste as one of its sweeteners. "It makes our product unique and wholesome, and as a mom, I can feel good about giving that to my kids," says Lind- sey Rosenberg, Cherryvale Farms' Chief Executive Officer. "Retailers want novel ingredients, far beyond just high-quality oats. Raisin paste is our way, and real fruit is another way." Cherryvale Farms started in 2011 as a baking mix company. "But we've now morphed into a multi-category grocery brand," Rosenberg says. "Younger moms were our demographic; they were looking for cleaner ingredients and simple ways to bake at home." As she came to know her customers, Rosenberg says, she realized that, "That same customers was on the hunt for a healthier bar. Everything we do is vegan and plant-based. Love It! Bars are essen- tially muffin bars, and they're totally deli- cious, made with whole grains." Much larger companies are taking note of smaller companies' innovations, she says. "There are fewer reasons now to use artificial flavors and colors. We don't have to engineer foods like previous genera- tions. We have to look at what works, and what tastes great. Luckily, we're seeing some of the major brands doing it, too. Not just us little guys." "Lots of companies are coming out with stuff for niche diets," says Rosenberg. "We don't put the word 'vegan' on our market- ing, because we think 'plant-based' is something that makes the products much more approachable. We can make a bar without dairy or eggs that tastes just as de- licious as ones that have both," she says. "We never want to be a delicious vegan bar. We just want to be a delicious bar." n Doritos Line Now Includes Flamin' Hot Nacho Flavor In a hot twist on an original flavor, Dori- tos, one of the marquee brands from Pep- siCo's Frito-Lay division, is setting the snack aisle on fire with the release of its latest bold flavor — Doritos Flamin' Hot Nacho. For the first time on a tortilla chip nationwide, the new flavor offers a com- bination of the popular hot and spicy fla- vor of flamin' hot and the timeless flavor of original nacho cheese. Flamin' Hot Nacho is Doritos' latest push into the hot & spicy food category, one of the fastest-growing segments in the food industry. Flamin' Hot Nacho's taste experience starts with the original nacho cheese flavor fans know and love, fol- lowed by a kick of heat that continues to build. The flamin' red and black Doritos Flamin' Hot Nacho packaging officially joined the Doritos ranks on store shelves and online nationwide in January. Doritos Flamin' Hot Nacho is available in 9.75- ounce bags for a suggested retail price of $4.29 and 3.12-ounce bags for a suggested retail price of $1.89. For more informa- tion, visit www.doritos.com. n

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