CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Convenience-store supplier Lil’ Drug Store Products will be the exclusive convenience-channel marketer of the Popchips and Sensible Foods Crunch Dried Fruit snack brands, continuing its expansion into the snack category.
The partnership will make the healthy snack products available in thousands of c-stores across the country, the distributor said, offering retailers a way to meet the growing demand for healthier snack options.
“Many convenience-store retailers have let us know they want to offer ‘better-for-you’ snacks, but don’t know which items to carry,” said Doug Marquardt, director of marketing for Lil’ Drug Store Products (LDSP). “Now retailers have one single source in LDSP that they can trust to help them gain incremental sales for their healthy-snack category.”
The healthy-snack category has experienced 16% growth year over year since 2011, according to Nielsen retail data, with much of the demand being driven by millennial consumers.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based LDSP selected the Popchips and Sensible Foods brands for their better-for-you qualities, such as more protein, less fat and lower calories. Los Angeles-based Popchips makes potato and veggie chips that are popped instead of fried, and Sensible Foods, Vacaville, Calif., makes natural and organic fruit and veggie snacks using its proprietary crunch-dried process.
“Lil’ Drug Store Products is an industry leader with a proven record of successfully building brands, and we’re honored to partner with them,” said Dan O’Koniewski, channel marketing director for Popchips. “There’s tremendous potential for the Popchips brand to thrive in this channel.”
Lil’ Drug Store Products, a leading supplier of health and beauty and automotive products for c-stores, expanded into snacks in June 2016. It also distributes Calbee's Harvest Snaps snap-pea and lentil-bean crisps.
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