There’s no right or wrong way to snack, but there’s little doubt that Americans are growing increasingly health conscious as they reach for a bite in between meals—or in place of one. And as consumers’ hunger for healthful options rises, it’s important for retailers and manufacturers to stay on top of consumption trends in the produce aisle.
While not as big as the salty snack category, the “snackable” fruit and vegetable category is massive, with sales of $16.3 billion in the year ended May 27, 2017. While these products can easily serve as snacks, it’s impossible to say that every banana sale, for example, was consumed for that reason. So we set out to define a set of packaged items sold in the produce department for the purpose of snacking. This “on-the-go” snacking sub-category is a $1.1 billion area, and while many areas of the store have struggled to find growth, it posted a compound annual growth rate of more than 10% every year between 2012 and 2016. And to keep up with growing sales, manufacturers and retailers are doing their part to pacify increasing sales: 900 new snacking items have been added to grocery shelves over that period, 600 of which were individual-servings of fresh cut fruit—with and without additional items.
And in looking at consumer trends, manufacturers and retailers are seeing the benefits of combining fruit options with other items, such as vegetables, nuts and dip. For example, retailers sold $117 million in mixed fruit for the year ended May 27, 2017, but those sales were closely rivalled by sales of mixed fruit items that were paired with at least one other component.
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