ORLANDO, FLA. — The better-for-you (BFY) macro-snacks market stands at $47 billion globally and is expected to reach $75 billion by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate jumping to 7.6% from 4.2%, according to a forecast by Trifecta Research.

North America commands the largest share of the BFY snacks market at nearly 32%, with functional ingredients like fiber, protein and probiotics as well as sustainability claims all driving growth.

While BFY snacks are an ever-growing opportunity for the category, producers face many challenges in researching and developing these snacks while satisfying consumer expectations and overcoming an evolving regulatory landscape.

At SNAXPO25 in Orlando, Alex Tipton, global director of food ingredients at PepsiCo, Purchase, NY; David Lestage, R&D officer for Kellanova, Chicago; and Lori Kelly, regulatory consultant and former PepsiCo regulatory affairs lead, shared how snack makers can navigate those challenges with their BFY offerings.

Lestage emphasized that reformulating products to reduce or replace certain ingredients with BFY alternatives is never a simple swap.

“Some of these functional replacements bring in the necessity for additional modifiers and stabilizers, and some bring in off-flavors,” he said. “You have to account for that as well. It’s not simple at all.”

Tipton cited the challenges brought by formulating snacks with whole grain corn.

“If you all of a sudden want to switch from a degermed corn product to using whole grain corn, all the good stuff that you’re putting in there nutritionally now is causing all of the organoleptic, process and shelf-life issues,” he said.

While producers want to satisfy consumers’ BFY demands, snacks still need to taste good, Tipton noted.

“In the end, salty snacks are about enjoyment, and that’s what it’s always going to be about,” he said. “But now it also needs to be about, ‘I want my delicious salty snack, but I also want something with functional ingredients.’”

Consumers increasingly seek snacks meeting their individual needs, requiring producers to do more to connect with these shoppers and their health and wellness goals, Lestage observed.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand for snacks catering more toward dietary needs, functional benefits and mood states,” he said. “Over the next several years, we’ll see movement of brands from this mass segmentation to a more dynamic, focused personalization of offerings. At the end of the day, consumers want to engage more with brands.”

Panelists gathered at SNAXPO25 in Orlando to discuss how snack makers can navigate the challenges facing their BFY offerings. 

| Source: Sosland Publishing Co.

Brands should be leveraging consumption data, loyalty insights and emerging AI-driven trend forecasting to understand which BFY snacks consumers are buying and why, Lestage added.

“We have many tools out there that can identify consumer trends that are occurring in real time through social media,” he said. “But the next stage of these, which we’re seeing a lot more prevalence of, is now being able to tap into prediction analytics and determine which of those trends is actually going to stick around.”

In oversight of BFY claims, federal regulators aren’t keeping pace with the needs of BFY snack makers, Kelly said.

“How do we get new ingredients approved, and how do we get (regulators) to talk about them?” she asked. “It’s very easy to follow the regulations on nutrient claims. You put so much sodium in the product, you get to say it’s low sodium. But you get into the more complex cases of what consumers are wanting, and there are no regulations behind it.”

Kelly noted, “Our government hasn’t even started to take a crack at what adaptogens are. There’s no definition, no ‘How do you put it in?’ and ‘How do you stay above board, truthful and transparent to the consumer when you want to put these things into the snack market?’”

With that in mind, snack makers must be diligent with their BFY claims by providing plenty of substantiation so the claims stand up to regulations when they do come, Kelly said.

Though certain BFY ingredients lack regulation, snack manufacturers are adjusting to Food and Drug Administration measures recently put in place and on the horizon. Kelly cited the FDA’s new definition of “healthy,” as well as its proposed rule requiring snack makers to list saturated fat, sodium and added sugar content on the front of packages and label the amounts as low, medium or high.

As ingredient bans rise, Kelly expects BFY snack makers to get squeezed.

“How healthy do you have to be?” she said. “How clean is your label? What ingredients do you still not want to use, even though they’re perfectly legal and safe to use? And then you get to the middle and you try … to make the best-tasting snack that consumers will still crave and be able to talk about the benefits.”