US retailer Wegmans Food Markets is introducing a range of fresh-cut snacks in time for the Back-to-School season in response to the growth of the country’s snacking market.
According to research from the NPD Group, a typical American consumer eats more than 1,000 snacks a year.
Overall, the Hartman Group claims snacking now accounts for 53 per cent of all 'eating occasions' in the US.
“Our people and our customers often tell us that healthy eating is important, but they struggle with finding the time to plan and prepare fresh, healthy choices,” explained Tom Colopietro, category merchant at Wegmans, in a press release from the company.
“We’re learning that for many customers, ready in a few minutes isn’t fast enough. What they’re really looking for is something that’s healthy, tastes good, and is ready to eat right away.'
A Wegmans culinary team led by Eric Wendorff, the firm's corporate operations executive chef, started working up snacking combinations in the company’s test kitchen.
According to Wendorff, the firm focused on taste appeal and texture contrasts – crunchy versus smooth and creamy, chewy versus silky soft.
“Our people also tweeted customers to find out about their favorite snack ideas. Then we took the ideas to the nutrition team at Wegmans, which offered a few tweaks to boost the nutritional values,” Wendorff noted.
Every day, the culinary team at each Wegmans store will create snacks for children and adults, including freshly washed and cut fruits and vegetables, healthy dips like houmous and wholegrain crackers.
The Fresh Cut Snacks line features combinations such as:
• Cut carrots and houmous dip, with organic turkey strips and wholegrain crackers.
• Raw vegetables (carrot, bell peppers, jicama sticks and snap peas) with roasted red pepper houmous dip.
• Carrot and celery sticks with houmous dip.
• Apple slices and celery sticks, with organic peanut butter and wholegrain rice cakes.
• Mixed fresh fruit cup – berries, pineapples, cantaloupe and honeydew melons.
• Blueberry Greek yogurt parfait.
• Mixed dried fruit and nut cups.
All of the snacks are priced at US$4 or less each, and have a calorie range of 280 to 520 calories.
Wegmans Food Markets operates an 81-store supermarket chain, with stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
