Top Trends - 2024 Sweets & Snacks Show

I had the pleasure last week of presenting confection and snack trends at the 2024 Sweets & Snacks Expo in Indianapolis and I am proud to report that the show was as inspiring as ever. The National Confectioners Association #NCA always puts on a great party with many sweet innovative products from the thousands of exhibitors for the 13,000+ attendees that pack their pockets, and sometimes entire suitcases, full of the industry's most innovative treats. Below is a recap of the key trends I saw last week and some of my favorites from the show.

Enjoy!

Freeze Dried Frenzy - freeze dried everything and saw this all over the floor. What started with fruits and veggies for the health food nut is now the next craze to hit the candy industry. With the low-cost entry of commercial freeze dryers this has made the category explode. From gummy bears and gummy worms to Skittles, hard candies and everything in between this fun textured and space age candy will be everywhere this summer.

Everything's Turned Sour - everywhere I turned I saw another product that is now featuring a sour variety. All formats, all flavors and all brands seemed to have jumped on the sour craze with #GenZ, #millenials and #GenX all looking to relive their childhood days with friends seeing who could withstand the WARHEADS challenge or feel the comfort from their SOUR PATCH KID friends. Despite feeling like I have a small ulcer and no teeth enamel left from the citric acid, this core taste continues to expand with large confection brands and many international and niche products. My favorite was the Sour Punch Pickle Roulette candy that challenged me with extreme sour straws in green apple, watermelon lemon-lime and the show favorite, pickle!

Make it Spicy - many products are also adding a heat element to their products to capture that adventurous younger consumer. According to a session I attend with Circana, non-chocolate candy flavor volume, SPICY has grown 26.3% in the past 52 weeks compared to FRUIT -1.4%, ASSORTED -0.9% and SOUR -0.8%. From simply HOT to sweet heat to specific pepper varietals, keep your eyes open as this category is “en fuego”. Flavors that are hot - hot honey, sweet chili, spicy queso, chili lime, buffalo, chamoy, Flamin' Hot, Guajillo, Calabrian Chili, Ghost Pepper, and just flat-out HEAT. The Tongue Bomb Inferno challenge from www.funfactorycandy.com isn't for the faint of heart and be prepared to be lit.

On the sweet heat side keep an eye out for and combination of the following as this category will continue to see growth across all platforms moving forward - cherry+chipotle, mango+habanero, hot honey+apricot, wasabi+lime, strawberry+jalapenpo, mango+ancho, and pineapple+Serrano to name a few I saw or foresee in the future.

Globally Inspired Flavors - as the world continues to shrink via social media, travel, and now a portal directly connecting New York to Dublin, we are seeing many international flavors continue to hit shelves and now also dominating the candy aisle. As the US continues to see a large increase in ethnically blended households, the adoption of many culinary styles and flavor profiles continues to make this flavor expansion from savory to sweet and with endless flavor possibilities from around the globe.

Industrias Tajín is the star being found almost everywhere during the show being dusted on suckers, gummy bears, chocolate, gum and chips. This savory Mexican staple is being seen everywhere and across all categories from beverage rimmed margarita glasses to dusting on chips/snacks to coatings on sweet confections.

Many flavors from Asia were also seen across the show floor but are now being showcased as a lot more specific and authentic to their roots. We are moving away from more of the generic flavors like Siracha and into more complex flavor builds like Chinese Hot Pot, Furikake, Ramen, and Pad Thai. Authenticity continues to be important with consumers looking to experience the realness of flavors like salted lemon, salted egg, calamansi lime, wasabi, and of course matcha. We will continue to see flavors from East Asia infiltrate the mainstream American palette as the curiosity to this region continues. Be on the look-out for a few that aren't quite a common household name yet, but soon will be. These include Ube, Yuzu, gochujang, and nori.

Other international flavors to note seen at the show - chimichurri, churro, baklava, tamarind, blood orange, pistachio, guava, pineapple, tropical and hazelnut.

Clean BFY Snacking - many older products have renovated to position themselves as better-for-you with new introductions that hope to capture consumers with a healthier halo or sustainable position. I also saw many new products that were creatively using blended grain bases, nuts, seeds, and pulses to add protein, fiber and other micronutrients to snacks that provide consumers the added “functionality” they are seeking in their everyday choices. I also sampled lots of popcorn positioning itself as a healthier alternative and multiple “alternatives” to traditional snacks chips like Mee Kron Ramen clusters to Crispy Bites zucchini and bell pepper crisps to IRVINS salmon skin chips to crunchy mushroom chips from Evil Snacks. I even tasted a cactus crunch chip that dried, ground and formed a cactus flour-based tortilla chip from Cactus Foods . These products ranged in taste from terrible to delicious but are providing consumers alternatives to a traditional extruded snack base or a new way to get their snack on in a “kind of” healthier way.

On the sweeter side there were endless options touting themselves as being healthier, clean label and better for you. JUNKLESS? Foods Inc. had a tasty line of granola bars that shouted, "No Fake Stuff" and Beleaf foods showcased some of the most delicious plant-based jerky I have ever sampled with an amazing texture, nice umami punch and in traditional Taiwanese flavors to make the offering even more exciting.

I continued to see many flavored nut snacks on the floor and a resurgence of both better for you and extremely indulgent nut butters. Earthside Farms has taken many comfort food favorites like banana bread, maple-cinnamon and butter toffee and placed in on a healthier carrier like almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pecans. The nut butter category has exploded from simply providing consumers a non-peanut allergen and perceived healthier alternative to an overly indulgent treat and everything including the kitchen sink. Literally, I enjoyed sampling multiple flavors of this new indulgent snacking option from BNutty LLC like blissful blueberry and the Kitchen Sink from #NerdyNuts. While this is a bit of stretch from a healthy standpoint, these indulgent jars will be a hot with consumers searching for these permissible indulgence moments. For the consumers looking for the traditional healthier pouched options these are still abundantly available with more sophisticated flavors hitting the market like sea salt vanilla and rosemary maca from Revival which be sure to satisfy that healthy sweet tooth in all of us.

Another product to mention was Solely Foodz which was showcasing a super clean label fruit snack made with “one” ingredient, the fruit. Another notable and fun product that also focused on the ultra-clean label with a fun twist was The Froot Thief delivering over 100 inches of fun in each package with their fruit strings.

Undercover Snacks had a line of chocolate-based quinoa crisps in an assortment of flavors that are looking to provide the same indulgent treat as a traditional puffed rice, but with a little healthier option of quinoa.

Innovatively Weird and Whacky Flavors - this is the year of the #pickle, we may have one more left, but pickle will be a flavor we will continue to see grow across snacks, drinks and also in confection for the next 1-2 years. Seen in many formats from gummies, to chips, to hard candy this flavor is ready for the adventurous consumer looking for a bizarre and Instagramable moment.

Along with pickle, there were many indulgent, nostalgic and interesting combinations seen in anything from chocolate bars to hard candy and included lemon meringue, bacon+potato chip, raspberry+habanero, chicken+waffle from Hammond's Candies who are definitely taking comfort food favorites to a new level. Morinaga America was featuring a line of comfort food and fantasy #Hi-Chew candies that is a far cry from their traditional fruit flavors. These included sea-salt+caramel, strawberry ice cream, key lime pie, rainbow sherbet and blue Hawaii.

Repositioning the Core - many of the large snack and candy players showcased less innovative products and seem to be focusing much of their efforts on the renovation of their core brands. These brands have power, presence and placement so rather than try to create another $100M brand, many products have been remarried across flavor and format. Frito-Lay and 百事 have been leading this charge over the past couple of years and finally realized the power they hold with their core flavors. I enjoyed seeing my favorite chip flavors, Dorito’s Sweet Chili and Chili Cheese Frito’s, being heavily seasoned in beef jerky and Cheeto’s and Funyuns’s being dusted with Buffalo, ranch, spicy queso and other hot varieties.

On the sweet side, I saw many new introductions from #SweetTarts, #Nerds and others providing a unique multi-sensory experience with a blending of textures (chewy, crunchy, fluffy, coated), flavors (sweet/sour, sweet/heat, extreme sour, heat), format (ropes, filled/extruded, shapes, mini size) or appearance (layered, multi-color, rainbow).

Collaborations Craze Continues - brands continue to rave on with fun and sometimes bizarre collaborations. As many companies have focused on repositioning their core products, formats, flavors across their own internal products portfolios we continue to see brands expanding outside their own walls on many occasions to create either a crazy collab or different sensorial experience. Just Born, Inc. are introducing a rice crispy treat flavored with the beloved peeps flavors and Smucker's did a great job of drizzling the staple PB&J sandwich on popcorn in both grape and strawberry varieties to make sure everyone can enjoy their favorite jelly flavor. Another interesting collaboration was #Jell-O candy squares that took the jiggly treat and put it into candy snack for an on-the-go experience featuring Cherry and berry flavors.

I could continue for many more pages with the amazing treats that I experiences at the show, but knowing the attention span of us all, it is time to say goodbye until my next issue. I know I am way behind schedule, but I will be featuring my thoughts from the 2024 Natural Products Expo West show which is worth every word I finally wrote.

Stay tuned for more delicious trends and interesting facts.