CHICAGO -- Move over nuts. Cheese is slowly becoming the go-to segment of the snacking industry, and manufacturers are noticing. In recent weeks and months, new snack products featuring cheese have emerged in various forms, including cheese and crackers, cheese and charcuterie combos, cheese cups and cheese crisps. Even classic cheese snacks from more than 20 years ago have re-emerged.
It shows in consumer data, too: Eighty-one percent of consumers said they purchase cheese snacks at retail locations, tied with nuts for the highest of any snacking type, according to Technomic’s 2018 Snacking Occasion Consumer Trend Report.
Here are four reasons for today’s cheese-snacking furor …
Cheese doesn’t discriminate against dayparts. Consumers often eat entrees that feature cheese, such as cheese omelettes for breakfast, macaroni and cheese for lunch and cheeseburgers at dinner. And the same goes for snacking: Items such as cheese sticks, cheesy muffins and Sheetz’s Wisconsin Cheese Bites, for example, are well-positioned to be consumed at all hours, making cheese snacks a prevalent option throughout the day.
The variety of cheese snacks are increasing as consumers’ portability demands rise. The dairy product comes in assorted shapes and sizes—such as cheese sticks, cheese wheels and cheese curds—that fit into consumers’ pockets and cup holders as ideal on-the-go snacks. Today’s consumers have a tendency to skip breakfast and replace it with snacks, indicating the need for hearty and portable breakfast snacks, the Technomic report said. One result is the growing popularity of cheese snacks.
Cheese is an indulgence item despite having better-for-you ingredients, including high protein and calcium. And indulgent snacking, in general, is on the rise: Thirty-one percent of consumers are more likely to order indulgent, craveable items for snacks rather than for meals, according to the report. Snacks such as Cheetos and Doritos, two perennial cheesy snacks, claim their indulgence standings in part because of their cheese overload.
Photo courtesy of Mike Mozart.
Certain consumer groups such as health enthusiasts prefer natural, often homemade products over mass-market, branded products, at least partially due to the belief that they contain fewer additives and are higher quality, the Technomic report said. Many health trends are brought on by millennials: Thirty-eight percent of the demographic agrees that retailers need to use higher quality ingredients to get them to purchase prepared foods more often, according to the report. Manufacturers have launched a variety or artisanal cheese snacks in recent years, including Arla’s Dofino Havarti & Gouda Snack Cheese Bars, Whisps' Parmesan Cheese Crisps and Blue Diamond Almond’s Asiago Cheese Nut Thins.
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