People With Healthier Eating Habits Snack More

CHICAGOMore and more consumers view snacking as a way to improve healthy eating habits, and people who follow the healthiest diets snack twice as often compared to those with less healthy diets, according to a new report from the NPD Group.

The report, Snacking in America 2012", identified and examined the consumers who drive current and future snack consumption, also found those following a most healthy" diet eat a wider variety of healthy snacks, such as fruit, yogurt and bars.

Consumers with the healthiest diets consume 36% more snack meals a year than the average consumer. This compares to those with moderately healthy diets, who eat 1% fewer snack meals than the average consumer, and consumers with the least healthy diets, who consume 29% fewer snack meals than the average consumer.

We are no longer as averse to snacking as we used to beinstead, snacking may be viewed as one way to improve healthy eating habits," said Darren Seifer, NPD food and beverage industry analyst. This way of thinking about snacking provides an opportunity for manufacturers to make health and wellness innovation part of their product development and marketing strategy."

More information about formulating healthy snack foods can be found in Food Product Designs Snack Food Content Library.