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SAVORY SEE PAGES 4-5 n Spice Blends Bring the Fun to Yellow Door Creamery n CHEVOO: Convenience and Flavor in a Cube www.snackingnews.com Sneak Peek BY LORRIE BAUMANN Hungry Americans are snacking more than ever before, but for many, the between- meal food is a guilt-ridden, sometimes furtive attempt to stave off hunger and boost energy long enough to get them through the day to their next meal. Snack food manufacturers are making a wealth of products to meet precisely these needs. These are trends found by market re- search firm Canadean, which conducts three consumer surveys annually of more than 50,000 consumers in 47 countries. The research was presented in Chicago by Canadean Innovation Insights Director Tom Vierhile at last year's Sweets & Snacks Expo. The surveys found that snacking behavior is nearly universal in the KeHE CEO Expresses Optimism About Future of Grocery Retail BY LORRIE BAUMANN Grocers should be prepared to see their cen- ter stores disappear within their lifetimes as the business of retail sales of consumer packaged goods moves online, warned Brandon Barnholt, President and CEO of KeHE, as he spoke in early February to an audience of his customers and vendors at the annual KeHE Summer Selling Show. That online migration of sales for consumer packaged goods was one of the trends that Barnholt believes will be most important to the grocery business this year. Overall, though grocers are facing challenges from a rapidly evolving market, Barnholt is opti- mistic about the future of American grocery retail and its ability to adapt. While economists are pre- dicting that retail sales will increase by about 3.9 per- cent this year over last year, there's a question in the air about how much of that in- crease will be seen by brick and mortar grocery retailers and how much will be bitten off by Amazon, Barnholt said. Continued on Page 3 Specialty Chocolate Getting Better from Bean to Bar BY GREG GONZALES The father of modern taxonomy, Carl Lin- naeus, named the plant from which choco- late is derived Theobroma cacao, Sanskrit for "food of the gods." Hernando Cortez said cocoa could allow a person to go all day without food or exhaustion. Now, sci- ence has put cocoa under a microscope to confirm those long-held beliefs, and farm- ing practices and conditions have im- proved globally, along with the market. Cocoa products are also set to boom like coffee and tea, with a dynamic and blos- soming specialty market. From no-sugar- added and mission-based brands to single-origin bars that showcase the re- gional flavors of cacao, there's a chocolate bar for everyone from functional foodies Continued on Page 3 Continued on Page 3 Continued on Page 2 There is a clear demand for multicultural influence in the lives of American adults, according to a Harris Poll conducted last spring. More than three quarters of Ameri- cans (78 percent) agree they love trying new things outside of their own culture. This desire for novelty and variety is even higher among Millennials, of which 84 per- cent love the exposure to different cultures. One place where people look to fulfill their desire for multicultural influence is in what they eat. About one quarter of all U.S. adults (26 percent) say it is at least very im- portant that the foods they buy and con- sume contain multicultural flavors. Millennials place more importance on buy- ing and consuming multicultural flavors than any other generation, with 32 percent saying it is at least very important. Among those ages 35-44 and 45-54, 27 percent each find it important, while only 20 per- cent of those age 55-64 and 21 percent of adults ages 65 and over feel the same. However, multicultural flavor is still not as important as other factors when purchas- ing and consuming food. Locally sourced ingredients are at least very important for 36 percent of American adults, followed by organic or natural ingredients (32 percent). Buying foods with multicultural flavor is seen as equally important as purchasing from a company with a strong social pur- pose (26 percent). Adults are also seeking multicultural in- fluence in the brands they buy. When it comes to shelling out extra money, about one third of adults (32 percent) say they would pay more for a brand that under- stands multicultural needs. Among Millen- nials, however, the proportion jumps to Consumers Seeking Multicultural Influences New Snacks Appeal to Nutrition-Hungry Americans SWEET SEE PAGES 6-7 n Chocolate Companies Do Good Deliciously n Inspired Handcrafted Chocolates from the "Soon to be Famous"

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