Press Release Summary = This report looks at the retail markets for salty snacks (potato crisps, other bagged savoury snacks and snack nuts) and sweet snacks (chocolate countlines, chocolate-biscuit countlines, cereal bars and cake bars).
Press Release Body = Sweet and Salty Snacks Market Assessment
This report looks at the retail markets for salty snacks (potato crisps, other bagged savoury snacks and snack nuts) and sweet snacks (chocolate countlines, chocolate-biscuit countlines, cereal bars and cake bars). Although a well-established, and in many ways mature, food sector, overall value growth in salty snacks in 2001/2002 was a very marginal 0.1%. However, the sweet snacks market fell by 5.3% in value in 2001/2002, showing a significant decline in the largest sector, chocolate countlines, and growth only in the smallest sectors - cereal bars and cake bars.
New product development (NPD) is vital to support continued growth in the salty snacks market, and to stem the decline in sweet snacks. Recent important developments in salty snacks have included emphasis on the adult market, through more sophisticated flavours, different formats (e.g. dips) and premium prices.
Growth in sweet snacks has been concentrated in the relatively small sectors of cereal and cake bars. Developments have followed demographic and social changes, including the gradual rise in the number of working women, busier lifestyles and an increasing number of individual snacking occasions. Market growth has also been supported by the expansion of chocolate bars, chocolate countlines and breakfast cereals into chocolate-biscuit countlines, cake bars and cereal bars.
However, sweet and salty snacks are under constant pressure from a widening range of snack packs and variants of other established foods, such as biscuits, cheese, fruit, cereal and salads, often with more healthy images than sweet and salty snacks, which are perceived as being high in fat, salt and sugar. Manufacturers have addressed this through the introduction of low-fat versions of sweet and salty snack products, the promotion of cereal bars as alternatives to healthy breakfast cereals, and the launch of organic salty snacks.
Walkers Snack Foods continues to dominate the crisps sector of the salty snacks market, with other major manufacturers including KP Snacks/McVitie\'s, Golden Wonder and Procter and Gamble. KP is the major force in snack nuts. Masterfoods, CadburyTreborBassett and Nestlé Rowntree dominate the chocolate countlines market, although chocolate-biscuit countlines is a more competitive sector, led by Nestlé Rowntree and United Biscuits\' McVitie\'s. The cereal bars sector is led by Kellogg\'s, and cake bars by McVitie\'s and Rank Hovis McDougall\'s (RHM\'s) Manor Bakeries.
It forecasts that total market growth will be 5.2% between 2002 and 2006, with the salty snacks sector increasing by 6.8% and the sweet snacks sector by 3.4%.
2025
