Snacking With Honey On Trend

Have you had a snack today? Maybe multiple? If so, you’re in the majority of consumers that snacking throughout the day. In fact, a study by The Hartman Group found that 91% of consumers snack multiple times a day, with 8% of people replacing a traditional meal with a snack.*

We have become a nation of snackers, eschewing the traditional three-meal-a-day plan for mini-bursts of satiety through sweet, savory, and salty snacks. Fueling the snacking craze is consumers’ desires for convenient and better-for-you options. Potato chips are still popular, but so too are honey-roasted nuts, protein bites, and food bars.

In these snack foods, developers are focusing on more than taste. They are looking at each ingredient and the functional benefits they impart, from protein to satiety to good fats. These snacks also are using honey as both a flavor, sweetener, and functional ingredient to bind nuts and seeds together.

Honey’s use in snack foods delivers an all-natural flavor and a pure source of energy. It also capitalizes on these three trends.

Clean Label Snacking: Today, many consumers base their purchases on the ingredients in a product, not just what the product tastes like. Honey is a unique ingredient that makes a product look good and taste good!

Convenient, Healthy and Indulgent: Convenience can be healthy, and we’re seeing evidence of this as nutritious and functional snack foods are being developed to replace meals or provide a healthy option for mid-day cravings. Honey helps sweet snacks maintain their all-natural recipe and create a sense of indulgence, even in a better-for-you product.

Kids Matter: Developing snack foods specifically for kids has allowed food makers to influence both kids and their parents with a positive message. Parents want to feel good about what snacks their kids are eating, and parents can feel good about giving their kids snacks made with honey.