Snacks have always come across as less healthy -- high in calories and fat, but low in nutritional value. It is often cited as one of the leading causes of obesity. Despite this, snack foods are still tempting, so that the foodies are often unable to control their mouths, but feel a sense of guilt after satisfying their appetite for the snacks. To be healthy, or to enjoy delicious snacks, seems to be a dilemma that you can’t have both. But with the popularity of the concept of healthy diet and the promotion of healthy food, consumers now have a more ideal choice, that is healthy snacks.
What are better-for-you snacks? At present there is no uniform standard of definition. In the industry, better-for-you snacks are known as snacks that feature the concept of health. From some data reports, we can learn about how consumers define better-for-you snacks. For example, Online Snack Consumption Trend Report released by CBNData in 2018 showed the key words of snacks with the healthy concept. These include natural & organic, non-fried, low fat, high calcium, defatted, additive free and sucrose free. Besides, whether it's made of whole wheat, whether it’s rich in coarse grains and cereals and whether it contains high dietary fiber or not, are also the key standards for judging whether the snacks are healthy.
The emergence of this kind of snacks is a manifestation of consumers’ awareness and attention to healthy diet, such as their growing concern about raw materials and production places of food, food production process and the effect of food on their body and so on. As the survey data of Innova Market Insights shows, 23% of Chinese consumers believe that "whether food is made of real ingredients" is the biggest factor in their willingness of purchase.
Based on the propensity to buy healthy foods, consumers are also more likely to choose snacks they consider to be of nutritional value, such as nuts and low-fat ready-to-eat baked cereals, while snacks that feature the concept of probiotic, which are conducive to gastrointestinal health, as well as those made of natural organic ingredients are also popular with consumers. In addition, with the rise of sports and fitness fever, snack bars with high protein and energy also have huge market potential.
BETTER-FOR-YOU SNACKS: NUTRITIONAL & HEALTHY
Among many snacks,nuts should be the first choice of healthy snack for consumer, because they are rich in nutrients such as protein, grease, minerals and vitamins. According to public data, the annual output value of China's roasted seeds and nuts industry reached 121.4 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 16%. Among them, the growth rate of high-end nut products was even close to 20%. With the increase of domestic consumers’ income, people have higher demands for better quality of life and are also willing to spend more on products with better quality.
In contrast to the previous single-variety nut in big package, mixed nuts in one-day-serve package are now more popular. The variety of nuts became more abundant. Seasoned and fried nuts are still popular because of their good tastes, but the original flavor nuts are catching up from behind. More and more brands have launched the one-day-serve type products, and strive to "keep fresh" to reduce the loss of nutrients by adopting "short-term fresh-keeping technology" to ensure the quality and freshness of nuts.
Among the TOP 10 snack nut brands, the number of imported nut brands has grown faster, from three to seven in two years, according to the Online Snack Trend Report from the CBNData. Among them, Kirkland Signature, a nut brand owned by Costco – a large American supermarket, is favoured by the foodies and its market share is also increasing constantly, becoming the leader of online imported nut brands.
In addition to nuts, there are also baked snacks made from coarse grains or whole wheat, such as whole wheat digestives, coarse grain crackers, and dried fruit cereal oatmeal, etc. These snacks, which are thought to be rich in dietary fiber and can promote gastrointestinal motility, are also popular with consumers. According to the product information page shown on Tmall online supermarket, the monthly sales volume of Calbee fruit cereals is very impressive, reaching over 80,000; the ICA fruit and nut cereals from Sweden are also quite remarkable, with monthly sales volume exceeding 15,000; Mcvitie’s digestives, an early entrant to China market, also sells more than 6,000 a month in its official online flagship store. As for other brands of cereal snacks, the monthly sales volume of the stores range from hundreds to thousands.
PROTEIN AND ENERGY ARE ESSENTIAL
With the popularity of sports and fitness, energy bars have become a much-pursued rising star among people. Among them, protein-based energy bars (hereinafter referred to as protein bars) are widely welcomed by fitness foodies. Protein bars, which are made from milk protein, soy protein or other plant proteins, are mainly aimed at endurance and strength trainers and are designed to promote the recovery and growth of muscle tissue after exercise. However, so far, there is no uniform standard for the specific protein content in protein bars. Some domestic institutions believe that at least 25%-35% protein should be contained in a nutrition bar so that it can be called a protein bar.
According to the results of Innova market research, the newly launched protein bars continued to grow worldwide. While North America is today's largest and most active market for high-protein energy bars, the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest-growing market, with a compound annual growth rate of 25.4% for new nutrition bars with protein claims. Besides, protein-claimed cereals and energy nutrition bars (72.4%) accounted for a larger market share than sports nutrition bars (27.6%) . In China market, the number of new snack bars launched each year has soared from several to hundreds in 10 years, with a surge of 40 times! The extent of its popularity is so evident.
Though the numbers look good, most Chinese consumers have no concept of what protein bars and energy bars are. The bars they tend to associate with are sugary, high-calorie chocolates, such as the Snickers bars known as the hunger-slayer. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance consumer education and publicity in China to promote greater sales of sports healthy snacks like protein bars and energy bars.
At present, the market size of snack bars in China is about 37 million US dollars, which still remains a large space for development. With the growth of fitness groups, better-for-you snacks like energy bars will also become a promising market segment. Although there are many snack bars in China, but most of them are mainly high-fiber cereal bars, while protein energy bars are rare. Typing keyword as "protein bar" in Tmall, the result turns out to be quite some foreign brands of protein bars, such as foodspring, Nutrend and PhD. In addition, such products are not easy to find or only with a very few choices in large supermarkets and imported snack stores, according to consumers. In other words, protein bars is still relatively blank in the domestic market, and this may become a great business opportunity for imported snacks.
THE CONCEPT OF PROBIOTIC IN FAVOR OF GASTROINTESTINAL HEALTH
In addition, snacks featuring the concept of "probiotic" are also favored by consumers. In China, probiotics have long been considered almost as the same as yogurt for its gastrointestinal health benefits from the addition of probiotics and prebiotics. Inspired by yogurt, food manufacturers hope to extend the use of probiotics and prebiotics by adding them into snacks to make people eat healthier.
As a result, various snacks with probiotics and prebiotics, labelled as beneficial for intestinal health, have entered the market, including potato chips, candies, chocolates, dried fruits and cereal bars, and so on. For example, Lay’s launched a potato chips containing active probiotics in the United States market and Kellogg's introduced cereal crisps with yogurt starter, while GoodBelly also introduced nutritional bars with Bifidobacterium BB-12.
Besides, you can find more "probiotic snacks" on Amazon.com by inputting relative keywords. Mariani's probiotic prunes, for example, is added with Bacillus coagulans (BC30) which was said to have better heat and acid resistance than other probiotics. Also, there are Truth Bar that comes from America containing prebiotics and probiotics as well as Belgian Bouchard gluten-free dark chocolate with probiotics.
However, on Tmall.com, the imported probiotic snacks mainly targeting infants and children include yogurt beans, probiotic puffs and fudge which mainly come from Oceania and American, such as the Australian brands, Spring Leaf and Kids Smart; the New Zealand brands, Kiwigarden Grandpa's Farm and Bitsy More as well as the United States’ brand, Schiff and Happybaby, and so on.
DELICACY IS PRECIOUS, BUT NATURAL ORGANIC FOOD IS MORE VALUABLE
Besides, better-for-you snacks made from natural and organic ingredients are also popular in the international market, such as vegetable crisps made from naturally grown crops like potatoes and broccoli, instead of using highly processed "powdered" ingredients like potato flour. In processing, the use of more healthy ways such as baking and air-drying instead of frying to maximize the retention of nutrients in food materials and remove sugar and trans fats to control the taste and undesirable ingredients. Food additives like preservatives, artificial pigments, spices,sweeteners and so on are also under strict control.
"Consumers are now paying more attention to healthy diet than in the past, especially those with higher consumption capability and knowledge and those who already have families with young children. They are more concerned about health and are willing to pay for healthy food at higher unit prices. They also look up the nutrition facts table to make sure there are no harmful substances in it or added to it." said Jason Chu, the director of Hong Kong Greencastle Trading Limited, "A truly organic, healthy snack should be free of any harmful ingredients. The simpler the ingredients, the better. Also, chemical additives should be avoided.”
Candice, director of the Foreign Trade Department at San Shu Gong Food Co.,Ltd., Taiwan, also put forward a similar point of view on consumer attitudes and the overall trend of snacks. She believes there has been a great shift in consumers' eating habits and beliefs. They used to pursue the taste on the tip of the tongue but now are more in pursuit of physical health. Therefore, snacks made from natural and organic ingredients are more in line with the healthy consumption concept, which is also one of the most important directions in snacks development. In addition, she adds, it is necessary to avoid using ingredients with allergens and to make corresponding adjustment in taste, such as reducing sugar or using sugar substitute to decrease the intake of sugar and calories.
For domestic consumers, though, taste remains the primary concern. But it's also true that people are starting to pay more attention to natural and organic food materials. As we mentioned before, 23% of Chinese consumers believe that "whether food is made with real ingredients" is the biggest factor in their willingness to buy, according to Innova Market Insights. Also, there are data showing that consumers’ awareness for green food has exceeded 80%, and the two key words "natural and organic" have been listed in the concept of better-for-you snacks in recent years. Therefore, we can conclude that domestic consumers are increasing their attention to "whether snacks are made from natural and organic ingredients”.
In general, snacks which are not easy to cause obesity and can solve people’s appetite as well as meet the demand for health, are bound to have a broad market prospect. It may also serve as a guide and reference for food importers to import snacks from abroad.
