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The world of snacking today is no longer as simple as it used to be. How can your brand keep up with the emerging needs and occasions for healthy snacking? Our hub has everything you need: market and consumer insights, opportunities, and solutions - all at your fingertips.
Snacking is evolving fast and can mean different things to different consumers. To better understand what motivates today’s consumers to snack, we turned to the Hartman Group’s modern snacking framework. This framework identifies four main snacking drivers: nourishment, optimization, pleasure, and distraction. Any consumer can experience a combination of these needs during a single snacking occasion.
Snacking is on the rise in Asia Pacific (ASPAC). Although ASPAC consumers may be snacking for a variety of reasons—ranging from pleasure to nourishment—their overall consumption of healthy snacks is growing. Our proprietary consumer study on healthy snacking in ASPAC reveals insights from 800 consumers each in China, Japan, and South Korea about their usage and attitudes toward healthy snacking that can help brands develop snacks that meet their needs.
Click here to read the information on our key findings of the healthy snacking consumer study.
Our healthy snacking study also explores consumers’ behaviors and attitudes around physical activity since these can play a role in consumer snack choices— especially with regards to protein snacks. In looking at the consumer landscape in Asia, we identified four consumer segments: inactive lifestyle (32%), healthy lifestyle (25%), active lifestyle (35%), and sports performance (8%) consumers.
The incidence of snacking has increased around the world. One of the biggest drivers of this growth is consumers skipping meals and substituting them with snacks. 60% of consumers globally who skip meals say they regularly substitute those occasions with a snack.
In the post-pandemic world, consumers are more demanding when it comes to their snacks. Recognizing consumer desire for indulgent, enjoyable snacks that can also support health and wellness is driving higher product design expectations. Consumers want to see their favorite snacks in nutritious and guilt-free versions.
Click and watch the video for more insights.
Protein enhanced snacks are no longer a niche category, they are now relevant to a broad set of occasions but three distinct occasions have emerged.
The consumer needs protein snacks meet are multi-faceted, they include distraction, reward or treat, energy, nourishment and satiety.
Click and watch the video for more insights.
To grow the protein snack category, meeting ASPAC consumers’ preferences in product attributes is key. In our healthy snacking study, we explored this by asking current users which attributes are important to them in a protein bar. Great tasting and enjoyable texture are tied as the most cited attributes (at 31% each), followed by high protein (at 30%). This indicates that brands developing protein bars for the ASPAC market should make delivering a pleasurable eating experience the top priority.
Click and watch the video for more insights.
Meeting the snacking needs of ASPAC consumers is an exciting opportunity that will encourage brands to take their snacks to the next level. A delicious flavor, whether sweet or savory, and a delightful texture combined with nutrition consumers can feel good about is the future of snacking in the ASPAC market.
As a leading global nutritional ingredient supplier, we provide our customers with ingredient solutions for healthy bars and snacks—including dairy and functional proteins optimized to deliver the perfect texture, nutrition, appearance, and flavor characteristics that on-the-go, health-conscious consumers desire.
Contact Glanbia Nutritionals for more insights into the ASPAC snacking market and learn how we can help you succeed with your next healthy snack.
