Milling & Baking News - September 23, 2008 - 39

Bars and Healthy Snacks

Bar benefits
Manufacturers pack nutritional punch with probiotics, DHA

he time-crunched, cash-strapped,
health conscious demands of
many consumers stand as an exciting opportunity for the grain-based
foods industry, and specifically for
bars and healthy snacks. With each report illustrating the rising incidences of
obesity there are an equal number of
surveys showing consumers want to eat
healthier.
This trend has played out well in
the bars and healthy snacks segments,
particularly among the industry's largest companies, where dollar and unit
sales have been exceptionally strong
and product innovation has kept category interest high.
In the 52 weeks ended Aug. 10, dollar sales of breakfast/cereal/snack
bars in supermarkets, drugstores and
mass merchandise outlets, excluding
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., topped $700
million behind 7% year-over-year
dollar sales growth, according to Information Resources, Inc., Chicago.
Unit sales in the category, meanwhile, have risen at a similar pace,
advancing nearly 8% to more than
264 million units. Likewise, growth
in the granola bars segment has been
strong, with dollar sales up a shade
less than 7% to better than $893 million on unit sales growth of nearly
6%. Even more impressive has been
the growth in the nutritional snacks/
trail mixes category, which rose 18%
to more than $228 million in the 52
weeks ended Aug. 10.
"Rising income levels, and busy
lifestyles with little emphasis on
conventional eating habits have fueled the consumption of a wide variety of snack foods," said Global
Industry Analysts Inc., a research
firm. "Fast-paced consumer lifestyles have resulted in blurring
lines between meals and snacks.
Food products that were earlier considered snacks now are being consumed as meals. Widespread availability of snack foods that cater to
different taste buds with a host of
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

flavors, customized to specific requirements of different regions and
cultures, has also enabled manufacturers to wrest a strong hold on
global consumers."
The force of Fiber One
One of the companies enjoying
the greatest success in the bar and
healthy snacks category is General
Mills, Inc. The Minneapolis-based
company parlayed the extraordinary
recognition of its Big G cereals to
branch out into the bar and healthy
snacks category. In recent months, the Fiber
One brand has received
considerable attention
from the company.
"The name Fiber
One stands for highfiber foods that taste
great," Ian Friendly,
executive vice-president and chief operating officer, U.S. Retail
Division at General
Mills, said Sept. 4
during the Lehman
Brothers Back-toSchool Consumer
Conference. "We
built this brand
first in the cereal
category where it
is now one of the
fastest-growing
product
lines,
up more than 30% over the last three
months. Last year, we took Fiber One
to the grain snacks category. Our bars
were a smash success with 2008 retail
sales of more than $80 million just in
Nielsen-measured outlets."
According to I.R.I. data, Fiber One
is quickly approaching the No. 1 position in the breakfast/cereal/snack
bars category, trailing only Kellogg's Special K and Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Bars. Despite being a newcomer to the category, Fiber One already holds a 13% share of the total

category dollar sales, I.R.I. said.
Especially pleasing for General
Mills has been the across-the-board
acceptance of the Fiber One brand.
"You might be surprised to learn
that we have developed a strong following for some Fiber One products
among younger consumers, not the
typical target for high-fiber products,
but fiber is not just about digestive
health," Mr. Friendly said. "High-fiber products also have a low caloric
value, so there is a weight management benefit as well. Fiber One bars
have enjoyed some great marketing

buzz from Hungry Girl, a web site
and popular e-mail newsletter that
reaches 500,000 people each day. Lisa
Lillien, a.k.a. Hungry Girl, raved online about the taste and nutritionals
of Fiber One bars."
But General Mills has not survived
by Fiber One alone. The company's
staple Nature Valley brand of granola bars continues to keep pace with
category-leading Quaker Chewy bars,
and General Mills has expanded its
Milling & Baking News

September 23, 2008 / 39

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Milling & Baking News - September 23, 2008

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