Cold Foods Industry NewsProduct Development & Manufacturing

State of the Industry 2018: Flight of the appetizers

*Farm Rich tapped into the bite-sized, ready-to-eat trend with new Pimento Cheese Bites.*

At one point in time, 35% of consumers ate appetizers at home, according to “MenuTrends Keynote Report,” produced by Chicago-based Datassential.

Navigate to present day, and consumers are more likely now than in 2016 to replace one or two meals per day with snacks, according to “2018 Snacking Occasion Consumer Trend Report,” a report released by Technomic, Chicago.

That’s because more and more consumers are frequenting the frozen snacks, appetizers and sides aisles.

“As busy consumers continue to seek convenience and increasingly replace meals with snacks, look for grab-and-go boxes and heartier snacks such as wings and crab bites to fill the hunger gap,” says Kelly Weikel, director of consumer insights for Technomic.

Key takeaways from the report reveal that 80% of consumers say they snack at least once a day, 37% of consumers say that any food can be a snack if the portion size is small and consumers who replace meals with snacks are most likely to replace lunch.

Compliance.

See the charts here!

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Marina Mayer was formerly Editor-in-Chief of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods. Previously, she spent four years as managing editor and executive editor of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery and Dairy Foods, both sister publications. In this role, Mayer was responsible for reporting on market trends, ingredient R&D, production technology and new products within the dairy, snack food and wholesale bakery markets. Prior to joining BNP Media, she served a five-year tenure as editor of quality control for Manufacturers' News, Inc., where she was named “Manager of the Year” in 2006. Previously, she worked as an editorial assistant for Insider Magazine and worked as a contributing features writer for her college newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. Mayer was a recipient of a Young Leader Scholar award, presented from American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE), which is given annually to only five U.S. journalists, 30 years of age and under. She is a graduate of Indiana University with a bachelor’s in journalism.