Chaucer Aims for US Healthy Snack to be Multi-Million Dollar Hit in UK
20 Sep 2016 --- Chaucer Foods is planning to bring US freeze-dried snack brand Crunchies to Europe and the UK next year and is aiming for it be a multi-million dollar a year brand.
The UK-based maker of freeze-dried fruits, bread croutons and snacks bought a majority stake in the California-based Crunchies Food Company in 2014, as it looked to bolster its position in the fast growing market for health conscious consumers.
Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, Chaucer Foods CEO Andy Ducker (pictured) said it had "plans to bring Crunchies into 
Europe in the middle part of next year".
He added: "One of the challenges of the product is it’s a healthy snack. We would need to educate the UK market.”
"We have seen in the past three years, a real push from customers towards more natural , more healthy ingredients, which is fortunate for us as our product lends itself to this.”
Crunchies, which is sold in different flavored packs in the US such as mango and blueberry, generates sales of up to $8m in the US and Ducker believes this can be replicated in the UK market.
In the US, the brand is sold at Walmart and Whole Foods.
Chaucer's freeze-dried fruit business makes up for around 80 percent of its sales and is said to be one of the largest industrial uses of strawberries in the world. Overall, annual revenues at Chaucer are around $120m.
Its customers include Kellogg's, Unilever, Heinz and Starbucks.
Ducker said the feedback he was getting from Chaucer’s US partners suggested that Brexit had had limited impact on UK investment decisions from US corporates.
"US business still see the UK as an attractive place. For them its business as usual,” he said.
However, Ducker expressed concern about possible limitations on accessing the European labor force following Brexit, pointing to
the "very skilled" Eastern European butchers that it worked with, which could not be recruited in the UK.
Ducker said he would not want a "limitation on accessing that market".
by John Reynolds
