Snacks & Candy

Healthy Diversification for Hershey

Chocolate company plans to develop more for healthy-snack niche

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Hershey will soon launch its SoFit brand, a line of fruit and protein squeezes, snack squares, and nut and seed packets, reported Convenience Store Products. The launch will initially occur regionally, and SoFit products are already available on Amazon.

Hershey So Fit

The new brand joins other better-for-you choices under the Hershey umbrella such as Brookside chocolate and Krave jerky products.

“We understand that consumers’ relationship with food is changing,” Marcel Nahm, vice president of Hershey’s snack division, told Business Insider. “Consumers are more than ever interested in knowing what they put into their body, where does it come from, how does it get there. … Consumers want more and more choices.”

Other CPG companies lining up to offer consumers more choices.

This year, Mars joined companies such as Kind and Clif in the nutritional and functional snack bar sphere with its Goodnessknows snack squares, as did Hershey with its Brookside bars. Mondelez recently announced a plan to focus 70% of its new product-development efforts over the course of the next five years on healthier options.

For Hershey, this seems like just the beginning in what is sure to become a very robust staple of in-house snack brands. Nahm said there are plans in the works to acquire or develop more to fit the healthy-snack niche.

Will people trust Hershey to be healthy?

“Many people don’t really know where this brand or that brand comes from,” Nahm said. “Brands individually need to connect with people emotionally.”

Click here to view the full Convenience Store Products report.

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