Consumers want healthful, convenient salty snacks

To appeal to consumers in coming years, retailers and manufacturers will need to find the perfect balance between indulgent and healthful in the salty snack category, states Packaged Facts, a division of Rockville, Md.-based MarketResearch.com, in its February "Salty Snacks in the U.S." report.

To date, many companies have been quick to develop new products and modify the ingredients of existing products to keep salty snacks relevant within the discussion of healthier-for-you snacks. This quick uptake of an important trend, coupled with consumers' growing desire to eat on the run and the enduring need of snackers to indulge themselves, all combine to create a strong driver for salty snack sales between now and 2020, states David Sprinkle, research director, Packaged Facts. While the "snackification" of other products such as yogurt, cheese and proteins (meat snacks) are pulling consumers away from salty snacks, there remains sufficient interest from consumers in snacking staples — such as potato chips and tortilla chips that are found in three-quarters of homes — that sales of salty snacks will grow moderately well over the next five years, despite the increased pressure from these competing snacks. 

Packaged Facts said its data reveal that growth in sales of salty snacks in the United States has been steady. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for salty snack sales between 2010 and 2015 was 3.7 percent. Potato chips continue to be the top salty snack seller in the United States, with the category taking in $7.5 billion in 2015. The next strongest category is tortilla and tostada chips, which garnered $5.2 billion in sales.

The salty-but-healthy dichotomy also has spurred growth in the ready-to-eat popcorn segment, which just happens to satisfy consumer desire for convenient snacking as well. Looking ahead, Packaged Facts forecasts the salty snack market’s CAGR during 2015-2020 to be 4 percent.

To continue category growth, retailers could develop new store brand products that appeal to salty snackers in a number of ways. For example, they could tap into flavors traditionally found in other foods and other regions of the world and marry them with existing salty snack formats such as potato chips or pretzels. Of course, the traditional flavor pairing of sweet and salty continues to appeal to consumers as well, Packaged Facts said, particularly as the number of unique flavors in snacks grows and snackers look to satisfy any nostalgic snack cravings. New snack shapes are also a growing way for retailers to appeal to consumers, with new technologies allowing for innovation in the way the snacks are both shaped and cooked.