Apples and bananas? More like pita chips and french fries! A recent Datassential study found that almost half of consumers eat a salty snack every day. Out of sweet, salty, natural, and entrée snack options, salty snacks topped the list. What’s more, a whopping 94% eat snack food 4 to 5 times a day. These findings echo those of another recent study that showed people are starting to snack more at meal times.
While consumers say they want healthier snack options, the report found they tend to overestimate how many healthy snacks they consume. For example, only 4% of respondents snacked on vegetables the day before the survey, but 34% claimed to eat vegetables every day. The same respondents reported wanting more healthy snacks at affordable prices.
This provides challenges for food companies to offer healthy alternatives to well-loved salty snacks like beloved french fries or pita chips. Datassential offers up some ideas, like experimenting with different chip flavors and upscaling popular snack items.
Finally, out of 136 companies surveyed that don’t offer snack options, 33% want to add afternoon snack options. Morning snack options is the runner up at 24%, trailed by late night snack options at 18%. Retail companies are the most interested in adding snack options like self-contained and high-protein snacks, while others look to add vegan sandwiches and organic chips, showing there are many paths to the new snacking trend.
Read the entire Datassential study results.
