The line between meals and snacks has blurred, and consumers are looking for healthy options to fuel them throughout the day. This eating occasion is now valued at more than $90 billion¹, it has grown by an average of 25% per year over the last five years² and the innovation possibilities are seemingly limitless. Dairy ingredients present an opportunity for formulators to capitalize on their health halo, while realizing functional benefits.

Snacking Trends

Offering more nutritious snacking options stands out as a tremendous opportunity, not just for families and young adults, but also for an older population. Since snacks need to work within consumers busy schedules it is also important to offer convenience where possible. 

Health and wellness

Consumers are looking at snacks as a way to help achieve their healthy eating goals. Highlighting natural ingredients, including dairy, is one opportunity to boost a product's resonance with consumers. Additionally, snacks provide just 14% of U.S. consumers' total protein intake per day, which could indicate some new territory for product developers to innovate. Plus, Innova research notes that snack bars are an important category for protein enrichment.³ Dairy ingredients can help achieve higher-protein products with a more consumer-friendly, simple label. 

Convenience

The need for single-serve products that are ultra-convenient and at least somewhat healthy remains one of the biggest drivers in food and health.⁴ Snacks must be quick-to-prepare, portable and able to be stored anywhere to fit today's busy consumer lifestyles. Multitasking is common during this eating occasion and kids have activity-packed lives that require eating on the run. Grab-and-go options are a critical eating strategy for many. Dairy ingredients can help heighten the nutritional credentials of go-to convenient snacks. More importantly, they provide great taste that will have consumers coming back for more.

Healthy aging

Today's aging U.S. baby boomers view their food choices as having an impact on their health. They define eating healthfully to mean including "good foods," not just avoiding the "bad".⁵ They see nutrients as a tool to provide optimum health, and are concerned about sodium-related disease states (according to multiple consumer research sources).⁶ Today, a significant number are working to reduce or avoid sodium. Dairy ingredients, including permeate, can help new product developers create products that meet this need.

¹Get your share of snack time. Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. 2010.
²Innova Database. Snacks Revolution 2013. July 2013.
³Innova Database. Raising the Bar in a Crowded Market. November 2013.
⁴12 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition & Health 2014. November 2013.
⁵Wellness and Functional Beverages in the U.S. December 2011.
⁶Sodium Insights from the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. September 2010.