Healthy Snack Ideas Targeting the Whole Family
With growing awareness around the importance of eating a healthy diet, more people are making it a goal to snack on fruits and vegetables. Families are discovering that there’s more to the art of eating fruits and vegetables than simply buying them and eating them raw–although you certainly can eat most produce that way. A more popular pathway for families is following these 2020 trends involving fruits and veggies.
Sustainability
As with so many other categories of food (and plenty of other products), sustainability is a huge buzzword right now. Families want to know that what they’re buying is safe for the environment and the people involved in producing it, and they want to know where their food was sourced.
Reducing food waste is critical for modern companies, and it shows in products such as packaged smoothie blends, which need only be blended into cool smoothie treats without the hassle of chopping fresh produce or the guilt of throwing out unused portions at the end of the week. Brands are also using less-than-perfect produce that would otherwise go to waste in their products–and advertising it to attract the attention of today’s environmentally-conscious family.
Convenience
Convenience is always an essential factor, especially with modern families’ impossibly busy schedules. During product innovation, healthy snack food brands would do well to consider convenience as a key element.
More and more families are finding it difficult or impossible to carve out time to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables, making it a perfect moment for packaged fruit brands to shine. Consumers are increasingly seeking out convenient options such as precut mangoes, strawberries, pineapple, apples, and other fruits for a healthy, wholesome snack that’s perfect for the entire family.
Low sugar content
For many families, added sugars can keep this category of snack food from earning a healthy label. Sugar can be a problem particularly in packaged fruit products, which can contain heavy syrups as packing liquids. Today’s health-conscious shopper is not likely to view these products as wholesome; companies manufacturing these products should look into syrup alternatives, such as fruit juice or even coconut water, a growing trend.
A “no added sugar” label will shine over a product with added sugar, and that’s a trend that is unlikely to change soon.
Exciting new flavors
Fortunately, the modern consumer is more adventurous than ever, and that means that even a category as basic as frozen vegetables is getting its own exciting new flavors for entire families to enjoy together. Look for trendy flavors, such as garlic miso and Mexican street corn, and take inspiration as you create your own delicious side dishes. If your brand of flavor is ethnic-inspired or unfamiliar to your customers, consider adding a separate flavor sachet, giving home cooks the freedom to control the intensity of the seasoning or spice according to their family’s preference.
Our range of natural flavor ingredients can help you to create authentic and irresistible flavor combinations for healthy, family-friendly fruit and vegetable delights.