Potato chips and chocolate? Snack manufacturers and bakeries are experimenting with unique combinations to satisfy consumers’ desire for a snack with the perfect sweet-savory blend.
Phoenix-based Inventure Foods expands its portfolio of brands by entering into a licensing agreement with Vidalia Brands of Glennville, Ga., to develop new snack line.
Pork rinds are probably the most misunderstood item in the snack category. This is surprising, because people have been eating pork rinds—also called pork skins—as long as they have been eating pigs. One of the world’s first snack foods created thousands of years ago, and favored in the southern states, pork rinds are a simple combination of fried pork skins and salt.
Marketers of beef jerky, a favorite of truckers and a staple at gas-station checkouts, want it to be a healthier snack. Makers of the spicy, salty dried treat find that consumers can accept turkey versions and are now stepping up sales with moister, tastier and fancier dried-meat products, some in flavors such as Basil Citrus and Lemon Garlic.
Simple salt just won’t cut it in the competition for consumers’ popcorn-craving palettes. Unique ingredients and flavor profiles are helping popcorn manufacturers go for their personal best in the great snacking games.
Low in calories, high in fiber—popcorn may just be the perfect natural snack. Of course, that doesn’t stop manufacturers from trying to up the ante by enhancing all the whole grain has to offer. Now, popcorn can be found competing with chips, pretzels and even candy in the snacking Olympics.
Jerky manufacturers are concentrating more on all-natural ingredients and intriguing new flavors to meet consumer demand for healthier, better-tasting products and to attract new customers.
Pretzels have been around for more than a thousand years, originating in southern Europe around 610 A.D., according to historians. Today, crispy,
hard pretzels are consumed by people in many of the countries represented at the 2012 Olympics.
Tortilla chip manufacturers are using innovative shapes, zesty flavors and healthy ingredients to turn consumers’ everyday snacking occasions into mini fiestas.
Harris Interactive recently released the results of its 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study, which analyzed the responses of more than 38,500 consumers on key measures of brand health for more than 1,500 lifestyle, product and service brands. When questioned about the brands they are likely to reach for when craving a salty snack, respondents chose Lay’s Potato Chips—the top-ranked salty snack for the past eight years—followed by two other Frito-Lay North America brands, Doritos and Tostitos.