Keto snacks like cheesy crackers can provide an option for carb-conscious consumers. However, according to Evan Wyss, they sadly don’t always measure up tastewise. For that reason, Wyss founded WHY? SNACKS, which recently released its first product: Keto Grain-Free Cheese Crackers. In addition to low carb count, they also offer a grain-free, gluten-free formulation with 8 g of protein.
“Too many healthy and low carb foods simply don’t taste great,” says Wyss. “Our goal is to make snacks that taste as good as their non-natural and non-keto counterparts, or better, and I think we succeeded. Some of our biggest fans aren’t even on a low carb diet.”
To learn more, Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery spoke to Wyss about the crackers, consumer demands in the better-for-you arena, and what makes the company different.
Jenni Spinner: Could you please share your perspective of the low-carb, grain-free snack scene? Please feel free to talk about before your company launched and since.
Evan Wyss: It seems like every day there are new low-carb and grain-free snacks appearing on the market! Food entrepreneurs and legacy brands are starting to realize that consumers will pay a premium for products if it delivers on taste, macros, and clean ingredients.
JS: What makes WHY? SNACKS different than other producers offering low-carb and grain-free products?
EW: While our ingredient deck is one of the cleanest on the market, when developing this product I was absolutely obsessed with flavor. I tried to behave similar to how I’d imagine a “junk food” producer might do their R&D. The only difference? I had a very limited, self-imposed “palette” of clean, real-food ingredients to choose from.
JS: Please talk about some of the challenges your company faced when it was first starting, and how you dealt with those challenges.
EW: There were, and still are, lots of challenges. One of the biggest was probably finding a manufacturer who could make our product. Believe it or not, it’s incredibly difficult to work with ingredients like almond flour. Persistence in the form of hundreds of phone calls and emails, and many, many home kitchen test batches and R&D runs, is probably what helped the most.
JS: Please tell us about your products, including your recently introduced Keto Grain-Free Cheese Crackers.
EW: Just a few months ago we launched our very first product, our keto-friendly Grain-Free Cheese Crackers. They’re essentially a healthier version (dare I say even more delicious?) version of the cheese cracker we all grew up with. And, by “healthier” I mean it’s gluten and grain-free, industrial seed oil free (we used real butter!), and clocks in at only 2g of net carbs per serving. They’re insanely delicious and we think everyone should give them a try.
To be clear, these don’t taste like most keto products, which tend to taste similar to what they’re packaged in. Our crackers are enjoyed by non-keto people as much as they are by those watching their carb intake.
JS: Do you have any interesting plans in the works—new products, new partnerships, expansion, etc.?
EW: Let’s just say that the beautifully salty, crunchy, and cheddar-y crackers are the perfect blank canvas for an array of other flavors. We cannot WAIT to launch new flavors.
