The U.S. cookie and cracker market (biscuits, cookies, crackers, waffles and cake) is gaining momentum. If, from 2008-2013, its volume decreased by 4.8% in value terms (to $11.4 billion), then from 2014-2015, it expanded in total by 11.3% (reaching $12.9 billion). Heightened demand for low-calorie, healthy cookie and cracker, increasingly popular with consumers due to the concept of a healthy lifestyle becoming more practised and widespread, was the main impetus driving this market growth over the 2014-2015 period.
In 2015, the U.S. manufacturers' share accounted for 88% of cookie and cracker products consumption in the USA. The low imports share is a direct result of the minimal profit to be earned from transporting cookie, cracker and waffle products over long distances by air and marine modes of transport; the products' fragility and traditional consumer taste preferences are also factors. For these reasons, the USA's geographical neighbours dominate the imports structure: Canada accounted for 47% of cookie and cracker imports ($707 million out of $1.5 billion) in 2015, and Mexico assumed a 20% imports share ($298 million). Last year, the structure of imports from Canada was dominated by sweet biscuit items (2% of U.S. cookie and cracker product consumption) and waffles (2% of consumption), and the structure of imports from Mexico was also dominated by sweet biscuit items (2% of consumption).