Where snacking used to be more about mindless munching and associated with empty calories, modern shoppers increasingly are looking for snacks with functional benefits and cleaner ingredients, but at the same time they still want their fun, and brands are doubling down to deliver joy with wild textures, intense flavors, edible glitter and theatrical candy experiences.
So, what does this say about where food culture is headed?
According to Scott Dicker, senior director of market insights at Spins, modern consumers want the same from sweets and snacks that they want from any other category – fun, flavor and function.
“You’re seeing some of the trends that we see in the overall industry spilling over” into sweets and snacks, “so that is both clean, functional, future-ready,” as well as different textures, global flavors, extreme spicy, sour and salty,” Dicker explained at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Las Vegas last week.
Protein leads the pack
Among the top trends at the show was an infusion of protein – including in unconventional and unexpected places.
“Protein has become the biggest thing everywhere,” and the more of it the better, Dicker said.
He noted that dollar sales of snacks with 20 grams of protein or more are growing 19% year over year for the 52 weeks ending March 22. This beats products with 10 to 20 grams of protein, for which sales grew 13%, and products with less than 10 grams of protein which saw dollar sales inch up only 3% in the same period.
While older consumers gravitate to snacks that are inherently protein packed, like yogurt or meat snacks, younger shoppers over-index in products with added protein – like PepsiCo’s Protein Doritos, said Dicker.
He attributed the increase in consumer interest, and launches of sweets and snacks packed with protein, in part to the uptick in people taking GLP-1 drugs to manage their weight.
“Their No. 1 thing they are told, nutrition-wise, is to eat more protein. So, this is kind of a response to it,” he said.
But, he cautioned, adding protein to a product doesn’t mean it is an automatic win. He described a “graveyard” of high-protein products that failed because they didn’t meet consumers’ clean label expectations, sourcing standards or have brand alignment to add the ingredient.
Benefits beyond protein
Protein is far from the only functional benefit consumers want, with Spins data showing an 80% year-over-year uptick in dollar growth for snacks with collagen ingredients, a 48% increase in those with super mushroom ingredients, a 10% boost in those with super green ingredients and 41% for those with added hemp protein ingredients.
At the Sweets & Snacks Expo, caffeine was a popular choice for enhancing snacks and confections of all kinds.
“Caffeine and energy has been really big around here. We’ve seen caffeine lollipops, we see caffeine powders, we see caffeine gum,” like MEG Military Energy Gum showcased by Ford Gum Specialties, which also makes the iconic Big League Chew bubble gum, Dicker noted.
Gut health was another top trend at the show, with confections and snacks calling out added probiotics and prebiotics.
‘Fresh’ and ‘real’ drive snack sales
While consumers have long given confections and snacks a pass on clean label, the trend appears to have fully shifted into the segments.
A big way that clean label is showing up is in callouts for seed-oil free products, like those offered by Wild Fox, which was founded in part to offer protein-packed snacks, including trail mixes, without seed oils.
Dicker noted that sales of seed oil-free snacks are far outpacing those made with seed oils. For example, in the natural channel, dollar sales of seed oil-free snacks increased 9% in the year ending March 22, compared to a 4% decline in dollars for seed oil snacks.
“We’ve seen a lot of highlights around things like avocado oil, olive oil and then also beef tallow,” Dicker said.
Part of the clean label trend is a pushback against preservatives, which are fundamental to many shelf stable sweets and snacks – opening the door for sales of refrigerated and fresh alternatives.
While shelf stable remains dominate for snacks, Spins data shows that refrigerated snack sales increased 8% in the natural channel in the year ending March 22, while shelf stable rose only 4%.
Fun comes first for many confection consumers
While health and wellness are influencing all categories of food and beverage, including sweets and snacks, many consumers still come to the candy aisle simply for fun.
“Indulgence is definitely the theme here. For as much as we like to talk about health and wellness, we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t mention that most of this is still around indulgence and fun,” Dicker said.
He explained that indulgence shows up in two main ways.
The first, is a traditional desire for something sweet, fun, bright and colorful. For those consumers, the industry showcased a plethora of products featuring edible glitter, oversized versions of go-to sweets, like Smarties, and intense flavors – especially spicy and sour.
The other way consumers are embracing sweets and snacks is through permissible indulgence, so products that look, taste and feel like conventional confections but which offer cleaner labels or added health benefits.
For example, Rotten has recreated the in-your-face ‘gross-out’ culture of the 1990s with gummies featuring bold flavors, bright colors and with added protein and fiber.
Products with unexpected texture combinations, like crunchy on the outside and gummy on the inside, are particularly popular with younger consumers who are searching for experiences. These trends also resonate with younger shoppers who are discovering brands via social media where over-the-top theater drives algorithms and clicks.
What comes next?
Looking forward, Dicker predicts that the sweets and snacks industry will continue to be influenced by cleaner labels and added functionality, especially as consumer interest in health span rises and they become more selective about what they eat and why.
He also sees longevity in chocolate – a longtime staple in the sweets space that is under pricing pressure now, but which consumers still come to for premium offerings and elevated experiences.
Ultimately though, Dicker predicts that fun will win in confections and snacks – especially as food and ingredients become more viral and a fear-of-missing-out as well as a desire for new experiences and community connection drives sales.
