Healthy snacks at meal times an opportunity for food marketers

Eating snack foods at meal times has been identified as a growing trend amongst US consumers, with the strongest growth occurring in the ‘better-for-you’ categories such as yoghurt, bars and fresh fruit.

A report released by The NPD Group, titled ‘The Future of Eating: Who’s Eating What in 2018?’, forecast that snack foods eaten at main meals will grow approximately 5% over the next five years as consumers increasingly choose snacks they perceive as more healthful and convenient. Ready-to-eat sweetened snack foods and desserts, which consumers are less likely to eat at main meals, will be flat over the next five years, according to the report.

“The growth in better-for-you snack foods in between and at meals is a good example of how consumers are redefining the foods they eat and how the traditional lines between snack foods and main meal foods are blurring,” says Darren Seifer, NPD food and beverage industry analyst. “Consumers clearly associate certain times of day with main meals and between meal occasions, but what they are eating at those occasions is changing.” 

Millennials (ages 24-37), Generation X (ages 38-48) and Generation Z (ages 0-23) are driving much of the growth in better-for-you snack food consumption between and at meals. Their positive attitudes about snacking, desire to eat more healthfully and need for convenience are among the reasons for the growth in this category.

“Food marketers and retailers can capitalise on the growing interest in better-for-you snack foods but it may require a paradigm shift,” says Seifer. “It’s key to focus on providing convenience and addressing the needs that these foods meet rather than positioning foods in the pre-defined buckets of snacks or main meal foods.”