Fruit Drives Growing Produce Snack Segment

The snackable fruit and vegetable category is growing, with sales of $16.3 billion in the year ending on May 27, 2017. Nielsen defined the category as packaged items sold in the produce department for the purpose of snacking. The “on-the-go” snack category posted a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent per year from 2012 to 2016. Nine hundred new snack items have been launched in that time.
Six hundred of those items were individual servings of fresh fruit, sometimes sold with additional items. Retailers sold $117 million in mixed fruit last year and almost as much in mixed fruit paired with another type of product, such as dip, cheese, veggies, or nuts. Nielsen found that 32 percent of U.S. homes purchase on-the-go produce snacks, with multicultural houses, families, and younger consumers buying more than others.