© Juanmonino/iStock Health+ Convenience

BY MARY ELLEN KUHN

? Juanmonino/iStock

Health + Convenience = Market Opportunity

Creative concepts coupled with innovative processing and packaging technologies are yielding a steady stream of new product options that are both easy and healthful.

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Freeze-dried fruit. Slow-baked meat snacks in bar form. Minimally processed sweet potatoes cut into curls. Protein-packed grab-and-go meal kits. Convenience is getting healthier as entrepreneurs with a passion for good-for-you foods and large food companies with the vision to recognize major market opportunities introduce a growing assortment of innovative products that are both convenient and healthful.

"You're seeing more and more products that are promoting health and wellness and convenience at the same time," says Tom Vierhile, innovation insights director and an expert on new product introductions with Datamonitor Consumer/ Progressive Digital Media, Fairport, N.Y. It's a positioning that makes perfect sense because convenience and health both routinely rank near the top on lists of what consumers say they want from food and beverage products (IFIC 2013). And these days many consumers are at least taking a stab at better-foryou eating. Healthful foods are expected to be a $1 trillion dollar business by 2017, according to Euromonitor (Gagliardi 2015).

Entrepreneurs like Alyson Eberle of Austin, Texas, are using cutting-edge technologies to turn their new product concepts into reality. Eberle, who began making fresh organic baby food after the birth of her daughter four years ago, opted to use high pressure processing (HPP) because of its ability to preserve taste and nutrient content. "It's expensive, but my hope is that as it gains traction, the pricing will go down for everybody," says Eberle. Her 11-item line of Pure Spoon baby foods and purees, which retail for $2.69 to $2.99 per 4-ounce container and have a 65-day shelf life, are currently in only regional distribution but will be introduced in select Target stores by early next year.

Brooklyn, N.Y.?based Noha Waibsnaider was inspired to

introduce her line of Peeled Snacks organic dried fruit snacks more than a decade ago because she felt that there weren't enough healthful snack options. She believes that the time is definitely right for healthy/ convenient fare. "Consumers and retailers have changed dramatically in the last decade," she says. "When we launched, we had to do a lot of education. ... Now consumers are looking for minimally processed foods with strong nutrition profiles. They have a lot more information about what's good for them."

The marketplace opportunities that healthy/convenient products present haven't been lost on major food companies. At the annual Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago this spring, the big news from confectionery giant Mars, McLean, Va., was the rollout of its 150-calorie goodness knows snack squares in which fruits, nuts, oats, and a thin layer of dark chocolate combine to supply a portion-controlled treat that blends health and indulgence. Meanwhile, Mars's candy category rival, Hershey, Pa.?based Hershey Co., branched out this year with the acquisition of Krave, Sonoma, Calif., maker of a line of all-natural, minimally processed jerky, and Mondelz International, Deerfield, Ill., acquired Enjoy Life Foods, a private company that makes a wide array of gluten-free, "allergenfriendly" products. In the healthful beverages segment, pioneering coldpressed juice maker Suja, San Diego, Calif., partnered with The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, in a bid to expand distribution for the company's line of fresh organic beverages made with ingredients that are not genetically modified.

A Healthy Spin on Snacking

While the snacks category is still dominated by several major players (most notably market leader PepsiCo), the snacking landscape has changed in recent years thanks to the proliferation of new specialty product lines, many of which have a

Entrepreneurial mom Alyson Eberle employs high pressure processing to produce her line of refrigerated baby foods and purees. Photo by Courtney Pierce, courtesy of Pure Spoon

Retail placement in the produce section is the goal for Sunkist Fruit Chips and Trail Mixes although marketers of the brand expect some retailers to merchandise them in other areas of the store.

Photo courtesy of Snack It Forward

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Health + Convenience = Market Opportunity

Figure 1. What Matters to Consumers When Eating a Snack, By Generations. * From Mintel

consumer preferences with the

% of consumers who chose the following attributes when asked, "Which of the following features are most important to you when eating a

launch last month of a nine-item

snack?" and given the option of selecting up to five reasons

line of Sunkist Fruit Chips and Trail

Mixes packaged in colorful, reseal-

Millennials

Generation X

Baby Boomers

Swing Generation

able standup bags and merchandised

Calorie Content

25%

32%

39%

35%

on racks in the produce depart-

ment. With a $2.99 price point in

Made With Natural Ingredients

23%

29%

25%

22%

Walmart, the products have a main-

Added Nutrition

23%

19%

21%

17%

stream positioning, says Nick Desai,

Low/No Claims

13%

15%

21%

25%

managing partner of Snack It

Free From

12%

11%

8%

11%

Forward, the Los Angeles?based

*Responses from 1,888 Internet users aged 18-plus who snack

marketer of the Sunkist snacks. Snack It Forward launched the

Sunkist products in 2014, and

Walmart tested them in 1,200

healthful positioning (IBISWorld there were more healthy snack

stores earlier this year. That experi-

2015).

options in the marketplace, and that ence and the company's own focus

When Internet grocery delivery total rose to 70% in households

group testing convinced the Snack

service Peapod, Skokie, Ill., tallied with children. In the same survey, It Forward team that the new

totals for its best-selling snack foods one-third of all shoppers and 42% of line--which includes four varieties

for the back-to-school period late those with children indicated that of freeze-dried fruit (apple, grape,

this summer, a six-pack of SkinnyPop

Popcorn came in at No. 1 on the list, The snacking landscape has changed in recent years

an indication that many families are making a shift to "sending natural, healthier snacks to school," notes

thanks to the proliferation of new specialty product lines, many of which have a healthful positioning.

Tony Stallone, Peapod's vice-presi-

dent of fresh markets (Peapod

there is a shortage of conveniently banana, and strawberry) and five

2015).

packaged snacks, including products trail mix SKUs in varieties like

Data from market research firm that come in single-serve portions Mango Dark Chocolate Blend and

Mintel, Chicago, supports Peapod's or with resealable packages (Mintel Breakfast Espresso & Granola Blend--

statistics. In an Internet survey con- 2015). (See Figure 1 for more

would benefit from some tweaks.

ducted in January 2015, one-third details about the health attributes

"The big thing that we learned

of those polled said they were

that various demographic groups say along the way," says Desai, "is that

snacking more healthfully than in are important for snacks to deliver, people don't understand what

the prior year (Mintel 2015). Six according to Mintel research.)

freeze-dried is, and in the store you

out of 10 (60%) said they wished

Walmart is catering to such

have very little time to explain what

Crispy Green's Crispy Fruit is sold in single-serving bags and in multipacks of six bags. Photo courtesy of Crispy Green

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Peas supply protein, fiber, and iron, which made them a good choice for Peeled Snacks' first foray into vegetable-based snacks, according to the company. Photo courtesy of Peeled Snacks

the product is. We did a lot of homework and came up with the concept of fruit chips." He believes that the concept will resonate with consumers because the fruit chips are crunchy and snackable, and consumers already are familiar with veggie chips, so the leap to fruit chips shouldn't be too great.

Marketers of Crispy Fruit freezedried fruit snacks from Crispy Green, Fairfield, N.J., like to think of their products as "fruit to go" thanks to their easy portability. "The market [for healthful snacks] has grown tremendously and continues to outpace the growth of most food categories," says Mark McHale, national sales director for Crispy Green.

Vierhile says that veggie snacks in new and different forms were front and center at the Natural Products Expo East trade show held in Baltimore this fall. One example he cites is Broccoli Bites from Rhythm Superfoods, Austin, Texas, which are described as bite-sized broccoli floret snacks tossed in a light dressing made with nuts, seeds, vegetables, herbs, and spices and slowly dehydrated in a process that allows them to maintain the nutritional value of raw broccoli.

Peeled Snacks recently debuted its first vegetable snack, Peas Please, a

crunchy, savory baked snack made from organic whole peas and whole grain brown rice that comes in three varieties and is packaged in 3.3-ounce bags.

In addition to lots of fruitand veggie-based fare, Natural Products Expo East also showcased a new variation on meat snacks: Wilde Bars, 100-calorie, slow-baked bars made with premium lean meat raised without growth hormones or antibiotics, plus ingredients such as ancient grains, seeds, superfruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. Available from Wilde Snacks, Boulder, Colo., the meat bars contain 10?11 grams of protein and come in fun flavors like Strawberry Black Pepper and Maple Bacon Blueberry.

Expect to see snack category innovation remain focused on improving the nutritional quality of snacks, with the majority of new snack product introductions formulated to be lower in fat, sodium, sugar, and calories than traditional snacks and many new offerings enhanced with nutrition-boosting ingredients, including seeds,

Health + Convenience = Market Opportunity

Consumers told Mann Packing that they like to receive recipe ideas with the package. Photo courtesy of Mann

Packing

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dehydrated vegetables, and beans, not to mention nontraditional ingredients like taro root and butternut squash (IBISWorld 2015).

Making Produce More Convenient With their bountiful stores of healthful nutrients and phytochemicals, fresh fruits and vegetables are perhaps the ultimate examples of healthful foods. In recent years, they have become even more

Healthy, Convenient, and Distinctive

In addition to healthy snacks and value-added produce, the health + convenience category includes a variety of new offerings that are not as easy to categorize. Here's a sampling.

? Not Just Another Hummus. Introduced this spring by Pure Mediterranean Foods, Elk Grove Village, Ill., Hummus Plus, a refrigerated mealon-the-go that pairs hummus with seasoned chicken, takes its inspiration from a variety of market trends, says David Gacom, vice-president of sales and marketing. These include the recent popularity of fast casual Mediterranean restaurants as well as the increasing emphasis by supermarkets on fresh fare sold in the perimeter of the store. Then there's consumers' undiminished enthusiasm for high-protein products. With up to 28 grams of protein per item, Hummus Plus definitely packs a protein punch.

Available in 6-ounce and 8-ounce versions, Hummus Plus is currently stocked by about 3,500 retailers nationwide despite the fact that it doesn't fit neatly into any existing product category. Most of the distribution is concentrated in supermarkets, but Gacom says the company is focused on taking the product line into new channels. Pure Mediterranean Foods also plans to expand the Hummus Plus product portfolio.

? Muffins Made Easy. FlapJacked Mighty Muffins from FlapJacked, Westminster, Colo., are another product that's hard to categorize. These single-serving muffin mixes in a cup are formulated with whey protein isolate and pea protein

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