Everyone’s interested in new products, particularly when it involves sweets and snacks. This year at the ISM show in Cologne, Germany  the world's largest trade fair for sweets and snacks, several hundred trade visitors again took part in the voting for the top innovations.

The 2017 winners were:

1. Misfortune Cookies by Pechkeks GmbH
2. Organic Veggie Box by my ChipsBox GmbH
3. Pralibel Dômes by Pralibel NV

The Misfortune Cookie by the Hamburg-based Pechkeks GmbH, truly has the “right ingredients,” a combination of panache and pleasure. In contrast to its counterpart, the fortune cookie, it doesn't offer comfort nor does it predict strokes of good fortune. Instead, its messages are "blunt, honest and direct." The pitch-black cookie is designed for people who don't take themselves too seriously and who can take a joke. This tongue-in-cheek approach obviously connected with the visitors who viewed 220 new products at the show.

Second place went to the company my ChipsBox Gmbh from Munich for its Organic Veggie Box, which  contains a combination of three natural, air-dried vegetable crisps packed inside a smartly designed and compact box. The baked, non-fried products are organic, vegan and gluten-free. Its selection reaffirms the ongoing strong pull for better-for-you snacking.

Third place goes to Pralibel NV, a Belgian company, for a decadent mixture of filled chocolates in a round, elegantly designed box: Pralibel Dômes. No surprise given that one of its past new product submittals won in 2011.

And for the first time, an ISM Packaging Award, powered by ProSweets Cologne, was presented at the show. The winner was the Barbecue Marshmallow Grill Bag by tri d'Aix GmbH.

A window in the packaging that is designed as a bag for barbecue charcoal reveals the contents: delicious marshmallows. For real barbecue fans the item also contains small sticks that can be used as skewers for toasting over a fire.