Snacks, Indulgence, Home Cooking Top Specialty Food Purchases

“We are a treat society, and its two halves are snacks and indulgences,” said David Lockwood, primary researcher of the Specialty Food Association’s State of the Specialty Food Industry report, 2024-2025 Edition, during a preview of the research at the Summer Fancy Food Show, Sunday.

Lockwood highlighted how ingredient and specialty category trends indicate that consumers are seeking out specialty foods as a way to indulge and snack throughout the day.

“Chips, chocolate, ice cream, yogurt, and cookies are all growing at a much faster rate than average. Usually, big categories can’t grow faster than average, but these five grew an average of 21 percent over the last two years, from 2021 to 2023,” said Lockwood. “Whereas, an average of all the other categories grew at 13 percent.”

Lockwood said that part of this success is attributed to the fact that specialty makers can deliver indulgent options more effectively than conventional product makers can. He noted that many of the top 10 specialty categories also contain elements of both snacking and indulgence, including chips, cheese, the snacks portion of entrées, snacks & sides, coffee, chocolate, and ice cream all experiencing success from specialty food consumers.

Cooking at home is a long-term trend that experienced rapid growth during the pandemic and continues to gain ground even after, for myriad reasons. Similarly, Lockwood expects snacking to see accelerated growth as more consumers begin to consider GLP-1 medications, like Ozempic. He highlighted the fact that these drugs will gradually modify how consumers think about the food they eat.

Lockwood quoted Stephanie Lind, founder of Elohi Strategic Advisors, who summed up the impact of the drugs on the market.

“Anyone out there that has a product that doesn’t understand the nutritional value of the proteins they’re using is going to get left behind. We’re going to go to what will look like snacking, but really it is how people are going to eat,” said Lind. Lockwood said that this trend is characterized by smaller portions, high quality, and clean-label food and beverages.

Moreover, Wall Street analysts project that between 10 and 20 percent of American adults will be users of these drugs by 2030. This trend provides the perfect opportunity for specialty foods, because these consumers are often seeking out elevated experiences and are willing to spend more on them.

Another key finding from this year’s research, Lockwood explained, is the tandem growth of specialty foods associated with both at-home cooking and in foodservice. He began the talk by charting the fact that foodservice has begun leading in terms of specialty food sales growth year-over-year—a phenomenon that he projects will continue.

“Never have I seen cooking at home and foodservice do well at the same time… it’s really a bifurcated market on cooking at home—there’s a big portion of consumers cooking at home to save money, but the specialty food industry has been good at enabling people to cook at home in an elevated way to help one cook like a chef,” he explained, adding that cooking at home’s success is why condiments have for the first time entered the list of the top ten specialty food categories.

SFA will release The State of the Specialty Food Industry report, 2024-2025 Edition + 10-Year Category Tracking and Forecasts this Wednesday. It will be free to SFA members and available in the specialtyfood.com Learning Center.