Rosemary, sea salt, nuts. These seem more like posh nibbles than the ingredients of a snack bar. And yet, they’re the latter.
Appearing in Whole Foods Market stores in January, Rosemary Sea Salt is among the debut variants from Frank, the savoury, clean-label protein snack bar challenger. Offering gluten-free oats, pumpkin seeds and “minimally processed” whey crispies, each 50g Frank bar packs 16g of protein – without any attempt at sweetness. And that is very trendy. “Brands like Frank are boldly repositioning snack bars away from the sweet aisle entirely, offering sophisticated savoury flavours, no UPFs and a protein hit,” says Guy White, CEO of consultancy Catalyx. “On the other side, dessert-inspired indulgence is huge, but ‘fibre forward’ and gut health positioning are gaining traction.” Take Grenade’s Soft Core Protein Bar: a Cadbury Creme Egg filling within a “fluffy”protein dough enrobed in chocolate, packing 13g of protein. It’s billed as Grenade’s “softest” and “most indulgent” protein bar to date.
The bars from Grenade and Frank are different as night and day, but both exemplify just how far the snack bars category has come from the cereal bars that have for so long dominated. “We are seeing a real switch in snack bar innovation, away from simply tweaking Favours,” notes White. Indeed, brands are pushing the boundaries on favours and putting premium on functional ingredients. As such, seven of the top 10 brands have mustered volume and value growth – as broader branded value is up 5.4%.
The innovation doesn’t stop there. In October, dairy brand Nomadic has launched a yoghurt & oat bar it said would kickstart chilled snacking. So, with all these launches, what does the modern snack bar look like? What’s drawing shoppers? And how else are brands breaking with tradition? Says White: “While cereal and family bars remain the volume backbone of the category, we are starting to see a distinct split, with protein and functional bars at one end and new ‘indulgent’ bars that are essentially confectionery hybrids at the other.”