State of the Industry: Healthier Snacks Lead the Way

With healthier-for-you snacks leading the way, the snack food industry turned in a 4% dollar sales increase over the past year, despite a rocky economy, with snack/granola bars outpacing every category with 11% growth, followed by yogurt at 8%, chocolate candy at 5%, snack nuts/seeds at 5% and crackers and salty snacks at 4%. Those were top-line results of the 2008 State of the Industry report presented at SNAXPO 2008 by Sally Lyons Wyatt, senior vice president, Information Resources Inc. (IRI). Lagging behind were frozen novelties and non-chocolate candy, up 2%; ice cream/sherbet, up 1%; and cookies, down 1%.