Top trends in sweets and snacks

It’s useful to track what’s going on in the market place whatever area of the confectionery sector you work in. With that in mind, Innova Market Insights has highlighted the top 10 trends in sweets – chocolate and confectionery – and snacks.

The top 10 trends it has identified are: organic growth for clear label; free from for all; the ‘flexitarian’ effect; processing the natural way; green light for vegetables; creating a ‘real’ link; small players big ideas; beyond the athlete; the indulgence alibi; and tastes for new experiences.

According to Innova, across the food and beverage launches tracked, clean label claims are seen more often each year; organic and GMO free claims in particular witnessed growth in 2015.

Key for sweets are: organic growth for clear label – 23 per cent of confectionery launches featured fruit or vegetable concentrate/extracts on their ingredient lists; free from for all – there was more than a 124 per cent increase in chocolate launches with a ‘dairy free’ claim in 2014-2015 in Europe; indulgence alibi – 79 per cent of gum launches featured a ‘sugar free’ claim in Europe in 2015.

Free from claims, including gluten free and dairy free, are increasingly seen: more and more brands add such claims to their packaging and retailers have introduced their own free from brand lines; the trend also provides an opportunity to introduce alternative ingredients.

The indulgence alibi trend refers to products that are sweetened without sugar: sugar free was the claim most observed on gum product launches tracked in 2015. In fact, 79 per cent of gum launches tracked in Europe in 2015 featured a sugar free claim.

The tastes for new experiences trend identifies the increasing use of coconut in chocolate; more than a 21 per cent increase in chocolate launches with coconut flavour was tracked in 2015.

An increase in the number of varieties of vegetable based snacks has also been seen.

Finally, connecting the farmer to the end consumer is something that an increasing number of brands have been focusing on. In the UK, for example, several potato farmers have started producing chips. Fiddler’s Farm is such a potato producer; aside from the brands personal approach, including a photo of the family on the website, every product features Lancashire flavours. Simple, but effective.

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Confectionery Production