Several Creative Energy clients are within the fun and always interesting category of snack foods. The category has its own unique motivators such as nostalgia, delight, and craving that impacts both messaging and packaging. Since all of us are snackers, here’s a quick look at the current state of snacking and some of our recent activations.

Snack Foods At Retail

Snack food sales are impacted by the current realities of traffic and the buying patterns of consumers. For example, consumer trips to food retailers are up, but they are purchasing less per trip, driven by inflation, convenience, and a busy lifestyle.

The average consumer is snacking almost four times per day, thus feeding the need is an excellent business opportunity. While average market-based rings per trip is down, the center aisle of stores, where most snack foods are shelved is up by 10 trips per year compared to just a year ago.

According to Circana, the younger the consumer, the more that snacks are consumed, thus moms with kids living at home is a significant target of our attention when we build out marketing campaigns.

Consumers are buying snacks based more on the snack satiating an emotional need more than any other factor, such a simply being hungry or if the snack is healthy. It’s where nostalgia plays an important role in evoking reflections on a happy childhood experience, or a great time spent at an amusement park as a child is important to marketing.

Nostalgia was the driver of one campaign crafted by Creative Energy for the ICEE® brand. The “Let The Kid Out” campaign helps conjure a childhood experience through billboards beckoning them to retailers offering the cold and colorful experience.

For J&J Snack Foods, the roll-out of their ¡Hola! Churros® brand among supermarket retailers, the message of filling the emotional need of craving a snack’s flavor was the key message. We originally created the brand message “Crave The Joy” targeting foodservice operators, but the same messaging worked perfectly for the retail launch. Since rolling out the brand among retailers, ¡Hola! Churros has earned an award as a new product from People magazine.

For the churro campaign, we leveraged the message above freezer doors with shelf talkers and pushed the message via programmatic digital ads to moms who frequently purchase frozen snacks and desserts.

And for the heatwave affecting Philadelphia consumers this summer, the play for Dippin’ Dots®, was a friendly Interstate reminder of the product’s -40-degree solution to their needs from the original beaded ice cream.

Snack Foods Within Foodservice

While overall traffic and sales at restaurants fell in 2024, snacks were a bright spot. According to NPD, sales at restaurants are down about 3%, the sale of snacks is nearly flat.

Restaurant marketers are turning their attention to the Gen Z demographic who spend more on snacks from restaurants than any other generation. Snacks sold at restaurants and c-stores are heavily leveraged as a solution for shoring up sales and traffic during off-peak hours, such as mid-afternoons and mornings as well as late night.

Sharing important insights with restaurant chain decision makers is a powerful tool and tactic for growing sales for a snack food brand. That’s why we drive a ton of content to our client’s targets via e-marketing. Crafting stories that are most relevant for a specific foodservice segment, ranging from K-12 to QSRs to fine dining is our secret for high engagement rates and sales for our clients.

Snacking occasions are on the rise, and now is the time to build your brand through a two-pronged approach in both retail and foodservice. If you are in search of a firm with expertise in the segment, let’s discuss your brand and your vision for it.