Naughty vs. Nice: The battle for Britain’s snacking future

Premium cakes and high-protein snacks are two categories experiencing high rates of growth in 2018, despite being near-polar opposites. Streetbees investigates the drivers behind the figures, and what it means for brands operating in each space.

When you’re feeling peckish between meals, is your natural tendency to go for a sweet snack or a healthy one?

It’s a question that the food industry has asked for decades, and one Streetbees has taken a particular interest in as the market continues to change. One striking finding from a pair of recent reports from The Grocer (linked below) is that both premium cakes and high-protein snacks are experiencing impressive growth within their respective categories.

With Streetbees research — and the responses of over 2,200 of our users, or bees — we helped The Grocer uncover how and why this is happening.

Brits still want to invest in indulgence

When it comes to weight management, slimming is out and wellness is in. This means calorie-counting is less of a priority for consumers that are taking a more holistic look at their physical well-being — but it’s also had an inadvertent impact on consumers’ attitudes to sweet treats, too.

Streetbees revealed that 3 in 4 people don’t think about the calories or healthy content of a premium cake or biscuit at all when reaching a purchase decision. As The Grocer says in its 2018 category report (paywall), this shows “there is still room in the market for a real treat” — and that investment in indulgence is here to stay.

Protein capitalises as sugar suffers in the spotlight

However, these high-sugar purchases are more of an exception than the rule. While consumers seem prepared to ignore the calorie content of premium cakes and biscuits — which are more of a one-off treat — this rule doesn’t hold true for other snacks.

Why? Well, it’s no secret that sugar is a major concern for consumers all over the world. As a result, consumers are in favour of low-sugar or high-protein alternatives when it comes to their other snacking choices — and this is reflected in the results of the study.

How do we know? Those attributes feature second and fourth respectively on a list of most important factors for Brits to consider when snacking — something that is helping power the continued growth of protein-based snacks.

Nearly half of participants in the recent survey said high protein content in snacks was either ‘quite’ or ‘very’ important to them, while more than a third (36%) are buying more high-protein snacks than they were this time last year.

So what?

As far as protein is concerned, brands in the sector can be confident that this trend is here to stay. The results covered above were consistent across all age groups, something The Grocer believes indicates a marked shift in consumer attitudes, rather than a fad:

“Instead, it reflects more fundamental, structural shifts in society — namely, the obesity epidemic and the backlash against sugar it’s inspired, the decline of the three square meals a day culture and the boom in the food-to-go sector.”

However, this doesn’t mean it’s all doom-and-gloom for sugary snacks. As consumers start to think about their health in broader terms, dietary discipline makes way for guilt-free treat days — and premium cakes are the big winners from this shift.

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A quick word on our methodology: The figures in the article are taken from over 1,000 UK Streetbees community members, carried out in September and October 2018. All of the data was collected by mobile and web surveys, and is accurate to within 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.