CSN EXCLUSIVE: How Hostess Brands Stays Aligned With Changing Consumer Needs
ORRVILLE, Ohio — When asked how Hostess Brands defines "innovation," the response is significant.
"We have always said that innovation is the lifeblood of snacking," Dan O'Leary, senior vice president and general manager of sweet baked snacks and pet, told Convenience Store News in a recent interview.
In sweet baked snacks, Hostess emphasizes the need to understand what consumers look for in snacking at different times of day, what is most important to them as they make their snacking selections and how they prioritize those options.
"We maintain a read on this understanding by researching trends, reviewing behavioral data and actually sitting down and talking with consumers. This diligent work helps us to ensure our strategy is aligned with consumer preference and powers our ability to deliver fresh concepts to market," added Scott Ward, vice president of convenience store sales.
Consumers' eating habits have changed radically and fundamentally, whereby today they are increasingly turning to the snacking category. In fact, more than 70% of consumers have at least two snacks a day, with indulgent snacking growing faster than alternatives.
A Sweet Deal
Orrville, Ohio-based The J.M. Smucker Co. closed on its acquisition of Hostess Brands in November 2023. The deal expanded J.M. Smucker's offering of brands in growing categories and accelerated its focus on convenient consumer occasions. The deal was announced on Sept. 11, 2023.
As part of the transaction, J.M. Smucker acquired Lenexa, Kan.-based Hostess Brands' sweet baked goods brands — including Hostess, Donettes, Twinkies, CupCakes, Ding Dongs, Zingers, CoffeeCakes, HoHos, Mini Muffins and Fruit Pies — and the Voortman cookie brand, as well as several manufacturing facilities.
"What we have found is that consumers are gravitating to the category for a wide variety of reasons," O'Leary said. "The increased prevalence of snacking meets functional needs (we are constantly on the go and snacking often better suits our lifestyles than large meals), and there is an emotional connection with snacking (it can be both our 'me' time and a way to give ourselves a permissible indulgence, or our 'we' time and a way to connect with friends and family over a shared treat)."
Following its sale to The J.M. Smucker Co. last year, Hostess Brands now has the ability to leverage the scale that Smucker offers to enhance how it innovates and delivers to its retail customers and consumers.
When looking at Hostess Brands' product development strategy, there is consistent innovation to maintain excitement in the category with fresh options for consumers, while delivering moments of joy. Recent innovations include:
Kazbars
The Kazbars product was thoughtfully constructed with six layers in total — two layers of airy cake separated by creamy filling, caramel or fudge and a sweet crunch, all wrapped in a chocolatey coating. "One of the most successful and complex innovations in our history and a truly unique snacking experience," Ward told CSNews.
Hostess Meltamors
Offering the indulgence of a decadent, warm dessert enjoyed at a restaurant or home, Meltamors feature a soft, fluffy mini cake with a chocolate flavored drizzle and a chocolate or caramel flavored center that can be enjoyed as is or warmed.
Hostess Mashups
Offering a twist for those who want a sweet start to the morning, the recent launch of Hostess HoneyBun Donettes combines the warm cinnamon and sweet vanilla glaze flavor of Hostess HoneyBuns with the soft, fluffy texture of Hostess Donettes. The new breakfast snack is made without high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors or artificial flavors.
The new mashup is only the second of its kind in recent Hostess snacking history. The HoneyBun Donettes taste combination comes off the success of last year's Hostess Ding Dongs x Twinkies Mashups, which featured the spongy cake and signature crème filling of Twinkies covered in Ding Dongs' fudgy chocolate frosting.
"These examples are in addition to our consistent pipeline of seasonal and limited-time offerings, along with flavor variations for our popular brands including Twinkies," Ward noted.
Driving Category Growth
Hostess Brands aims to be a formidable partner to the convenience store industry through collaborative retail partnerships and by investing in new solutions targeted at driving packaged sweet snacks category growth. As part of the annual CSNews Category Captains awards program, the company was named the category captain for packaged sweet snacks for three consecutive years in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
"This is a consumer that we have extensive intelligence on and are uniquely positioned to continue to deliver for through product innovation and distribution," Ward commented. "In addition, with our plans to escalate our brand marketing, we are committed to supporting category growth, which will help in our mutual goal of increasing convenience store traffic."
As cited in its 2024 nomination, the company unveiled the "Heart of Snacking Growth" in February 2023, a category strategy aimed at unlocking growth through three fundamental pillars: growing snacking occasions, the importance of impulse and the upside in omnichannel. Throughout the year, Hostess introduced, socialized and implemented custom insight-driven strategies with its retail partners that focused on the five growing snacking occasions: morning sweet start, lunchbox, afternoon reward, immediate consumption and evening reward.
"When you look at our product development strategy, you'll see a clear focus on introducing meaningful innovations that deliver on real consumer needs. By continuing to realize this goal, we are maintaining our commitment to consumers to deliver moments of joy while identifying new ways to expand the role our brand plays in their days," O'Leary said.
Headquartered in Orrville, The J.M. Smucker Co. offers a diverse family of brands available across North America, including Folgers, Dunkin', Café Bustelo, Jif, Smucker's Uncrustables, Smucker's, Hostess, Voortman, Milk-Bone and Meow Mix.
The J.M. Smucker Co. is the owner of all trademarks referenced herein, except for Dunkin', which is a trademark of DD IP Holder LLC. The Dunkin' brand is licensed to The J.M. Smucker Co. for packaged coffee products sold in retail channels.
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