The Editor Presents: The Snacks Edition
04 Sep 2025 | The World of Food Ingredients
Join our editor, Missy Green, in a 15-minute roundup of highlights from The World of Food Ingredients’ snack edition. Consumers are finding even more occasions to snack in 2025 compared to last year, with many snacking during meals or replacing meals altogether. This edition features insight into the latest snack trends, backed by data from Innova Market Insights, expert analysis, and industry voices. In addition to snack design and standout NPD, we’ll take a peek at formulation insights spanning fermented flavor enhancers, hydrocolloids in plant-based snacks, newly approved blues to use, and a new product on the US market today that combines cultured cells with plant protein. Lastly, it’s hard to speak about food trends without mentioning GLP-1. Our health and wellness section covers metabolic health ingredients and microbiome solutions, including those specific to women’s health.
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Welcome to the World of Food ingredients September edition of The Editor Presents.
I'm your editor, Missy Green, and today I'll be sharing with you the top highlights from the snacking edition.
This event is sponsored by Bia Springer by Lisafra, a global specialist in yeast-based solutions.
They help food manufacturers and flavorists improve taste, reduce salt, sugar and fat, mask off notes and add protein, offering a full range of natural origin ingredients to meet today's formulation and nutritional challenges.
As always, we're live, so feel free to submit any questions in the comment box below.
Now, what's happening in snacks?
Global consumers are snacking more frequently this year than they did last year.
10% say that snacking, they snack 4 or more times every day.
That's up from 6% last year.
The number of consumers who snack 2 to 3 times per day have also increased from about 30% to 40%.
What's driving it?
So many factors.
One of them is certainly social media and personalities.
K Chloe Kardashian has launched her own protein popcorn brand called Cloud, and in the US RFK Junior has inspired potato chip makers to use beef tallow rather than seed oils, which have come under consumer scrutiny in the US.
If we look at market demographics, Asia is driving the most snack development, accounting for 42% of all snack launches worldwide.
This is followed by Europe and the US.
There's also been a notable rise in sweet and spicy flavor launches, so you might have heard people talking about spicy flavors.
They have grown at a kegger of 145% since 2020 in snacks.
And what kind of ingredients are on trend?
Protein, no surprise there.
This article is written by the editor of Nutrition Insight.com, and he spoke with suppliers who create plant protein, milk protein, as as sole, which is a CO2 derived protein made from air, and it has a very neutral taste and a lot of applications.
So, on one side of the spectrum, we have protein, which basically everyone's after.
On the other side, it's a more niche side.
You have cannabis, food and beverages, and this is, this article was put together by our one of our US based writers who has an excellent overview of what's happening in North America in this space.
It's a super interesting market.
The regulatory volatility makes it risky, which is why you basically just see small brands who are coming out with really innovative products using both, CBD but also the psychoactive THC and other cannabinoids like Delta 8, CBN, CBC.
And all sorts of formats.
OK, so let's look at some NPD.
As I said previously, consumers are snacking more often, and in this chart, you can see the breakdown with the first column showing.
Consumers who say they snack once a day, it went from 2024 to 2025, it went down, and then consumers eating more frequently, that went back up.
And some of the products that encapsulate the trends can be found here on our product spread.
So, number 1, Chips Ahoy partnered with Netflix to promote the upcoming release for Stranger Things season 5.
And they did this with a new cookie that was inspired by the Upside Down.
It's got a chocolaty dark base and this redberry, this, this red strawberry flavored filling.
And this is just one of many collaborations that Netflix has been doing in the snack arena to simultaneously promote a show, and then the perfect snack that you can eat with it, whether it's popcorn or Korean style corn dogs, or in this case, it's cookie.
In flavor trends, sauces and condiments are trending, and that can be seen in products 2 and 6.
So, number 2, these are peanuts that were launched in Canada this year, and they include ketchup, dill pickle, and mustard flavors.
And then number 6 is a corn puff launched by the pickle brand Vlassic, which sponsors Pickleball, the sports.
And then number 7 and 8.
I feel represent like the true intersection of health and indulgence.
Number 7 is a candy flavored date.
So, you have a completely natural whole food product, natural sweetness, natural chewiness that gives health conscious consumers a nostalgic feel through the flavor when they eat it.
And you can also see on the package that it's reminiscent of this candy, like these little fish that have a licorice and apple, flavor.
And then number 8.
Fascinating.
Frito-Lay came out with a line of clean label versions of their staple snack foods like Doritos and Cheetos.
So, this Simply line is a way for You know, consumers to reach for something that they probably have nostalgia for or just interested in and, you know, have, Like the next version of that.
The continuing the exploration of NPD, this article goes into some of the recent launches that were discovered earlier this year, including the quest to reformulate with less cocoa.
Incorporate more fiber.
Also going into our newsmakers, which features innovations at IFT in Chicago, which also highlights some of these, recent innovations in clean label trends and also natural colors, which are of course very important right now in the US market.
One way to get cleaner labels as is through the use of plant proteins.
So, this article discusses strategies for using plant proteins as a functional ingredient rather than using traditional additives.
It was written by the senior food scientist, Doctor Tom Fenton from Camden BRI and he recommends that this structured approach.
To replace the ingredients takes this following format, right?
So, if you see the, the graph here, you have a cupcake representing good, what's a good cake?
And you think about, OK, a good cake has a high volume, has a soft texture, and then what can lead to that.
So, ingredients that have good emulsifying properties, and then which plant proteins have emulsification properties or foaming properties.
And that can be how you get started.
So he has a full breakdown.
They did some different sample cakes in this experiment.
And then, another way to incorporate positive ingredients for functionality is, but also through health, for health, is the use of yeast extracts.
These types of ingredients can improve umami and kokumi, and importantly, they do this while also providing peptides, amino acids, vitamins, minerals.
And then in our, in our opinion edge, you can hear directly from suppliers who give their opinions on the latest snack and bakery trends.
This article explores the use of hybrid products that are not just bringing plants and animals together, but specifically cultivated animal cells with plants, and it zooms in on one product that is now available in the California Bay Area by the brand Mission Barnes, and you can see the picture right here.
This is the first product to contain cultivated pig fat.
In the US, so, will this be a model for the future?
That's the question.
And, and next we have an article all about blue.
So, blue is an extremely rare color in nature.
If you do find it, it's often something poisonous, but despite that, it's really popular in food and beverages that you can find at the supermarket today, especially sports drinks and electrolyte drinks.
So, the FDA recently approved 3 new blue colors and the medical writer who wrote the story, Charles Armstrong, he also proposes the possibility of methylene blue as a potential new colorant.
It's currently not approved for use in food by the FDA, but it is approved for medical use.
So, could it be an ingredient that is yet another ingredient that contributes functionality, dye and products blue, along with health benefits, and he also discusses some of the potential health benefits, like anti-aging benefits that can come with methylene blue, as as the health benefits associated with the other three approved blue colors.
And then in our health and wellness section, we cover the latest in metabolic health ingredients, including products for GLP-1.
Gut health, so much is happening with the microbiome.
More targeted biotics are coming to market, also ones that are linked to anti-cancer effects and enhanced mobility in older populations.
And we also Discuss the female microbiome, and, you know, how complex this is depending on the life stage, but also what an opportunity there is.
And then lastly, we spoke to the CEO of Purados, the bakery ingredients company that is investing heavily in R&D.
And.
And also into some very innovative, you know, forward-thin technologies using AI for their recipe development and optimizing the company processes.
So, that's all I have for you today.
It's been a pleasure speaking about snacks, and I will now open up the floor for any questions.
We have our first question from Krishna.
And she asked, did any snack trends surprise you?
Hi, Krishna.
Yes, it did.
I, I feel like Nova Market Insights has been talking about the snackification of meals for a while, but what surprised me this time was seeing how not only are Yeah, meals becoming more snack-like, but also snacks are becoming more meal-like.
So there's this real like, True blurring of lines between categories.
You know, like they consider a snack can also be like bread with a spread, and then you think, is that lunch?
So, the lines are blurring, tremendously.
But what also surprised me was that.
It's not just that consumers are eating snacks because they're running around and they're, you know, going places, because the number one place to eat snacks is also at home.
So it's really just becoming like a whole paradigm shift.
Yeah, also just being at home.
Maybe that's COVID related.
OK, I see.
The second question is from Nika.
What is mezzylene blue?
OK, so, methylene blue, it's it's a synthetic blue dye.
It began as a medicine to treat a variety of different things, kidney infections, malaria.
It's also a diagnostic dye.
So, it's approved as a medicine, which means that, you know, it also has pharmaceutical grades available.
There has been some research, suggesting that it has antidepressant effects as as the anti-aging effects.
And it's also rumored that RFK Junior is taking it because of like a video that went viral on Instagram where he was dropping something blue into his beverage.
So it was brought up in this article by Charles Armstrong because Yeah, initially.
Initially, I was, I was kind of like, you know, why, why is this being brought up because it's not approved, but considering that it was in the pharmaceutical space already, where it is, and it continues to be, and it's really inexpensive, and it's so highly potent, it is a question, you know, could this be a candidate for, for a blue dye in the future?
But on the other hand, it's synthetic, and if we're replacing synthetic dyes, then , Maybe it's off the table.
On the other hand, it's still approved for all these great health reasons, so.
I think it's worth, you know, at least bringing some consciousness around it, especially as this, this viral Instagram video is also bringing it into people's mind.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
Thank you.
And the last question we have for today is from Penny, and she asks, how do you see hybrid plants and meats developing?
OK, thanks for the question.
I think this, this article from Alex Crisp about hybrid plant and cultured animal cells is, is interesting to bring up because it's kind of a new take on hybrid.
I feel like companies have been sort of dabbling in hybrid plant and meat for a while, thinking like, OK, you know, this makes sense from like a sustainability and taste perspective, but Is it really that marketable and.
You don't want to be like you're diluting a product.
And, and I think if taste can be like at the forefront and reducing meat actually being made, being positioned as like, this is the way we're going to make something more delicious, then it could be set up for success.
This whole idea of cultivating animal cells and then inserting them into plant protein, and thereby being able to like, expand the ceiling of which plant-based proteins can be.
Highly delicious.
I think that's a great opportunity.
So, I think it'll be all about the technologies that are coming out in the future and making it all about being delicious, which is ultimately what consumers really care about in the end.
Are there any other questions?
All right, it's been a pleasure and see you next time.
This is Missy Green signing off.
Editor
Missy Green
Editor
