Hungry for More

It’s not surprising the candy and snacks categories had another good year at convenience stores in 2015, given that more and more Americans are opting to snack and eat mini-meals throughout the day rather than eat the traditional three square meals.

Alternative snacks, in particular, had a solid year at 7.2-percent growth in average sales per store. “Better-for-you” segments such as health/energy bars and meat snacks led the way.

“Research has shown 33 percent of consumers are snacking on healthier foods. Many are seeking more protein in their snacks, which helped drive meat snack sales,” said Steve Montgomery, president of b2b Solutions LLC. “Better-for-you snacks are expected to grow by 8 percent by 2018. This is great news for our industry as we are America’s snacking headquarters.”

In the salty snacks category, which generated an overall 4.6-percent increase in average sales per store, potato chips remain the top salty snack in both dollar sales and unit volume, despite only growing by 2.1 percent in per-store sales last year. Nuts/seeds, another segment falling under the better-for-you bucket, had this category’s highest percentage growth at 11.2 percent.

As for the candy category, it saw the lowest per-store sales growth of the three. Still, average candy sales per store rose 2.4 percent to $45,325 in 2015, or $1,063 more per store.

Three segments — bagged/ repacked peg candy, novelties/seasonal and candy rolls, mints and drops — drove the overall category increase. All the other candy segments posted sales declines year over year. For the second year in a row, non-chocolate bars/packs had the steepest decline, decreasing 5.7 percent in average sales per store.

“Many are seeking more protein in their snacks, which helped drive meat snack sales.”
— Steve Montgomery, b2b Solutions LLC