Company: Simple Mills

Website: www.simplemills.com

Introduced: May 2018

Distribution: National

Suggested Retail Price: $1.99

Product Snapshot: Simple Mills, a provider of clean snack foods and baking mixes, has released 1.4 oz. single-serve packs of its best-selling Almond Flour Crackers, offering a whole-food grab-and-go option for airports, cafes, hotels, fast/casual restaurants, convenience stores and other foodservice locations. The new pack size meets rising consumer demand for wholesome snack alternatives on the go.

Available in Fine Ground Sea Salt and Farmhouse Cheddar varieties for the foodservice channel, Simple Mills’ Almond Flour Crackers hit store shelves two years ago and quickly rose to the #1 ranking as the market’s top-selling natural cracker brand. That success stems directly from a clean, crunchy, nutrient-dense recipe that is free of gluten, grain, soy, corn, GMOs, gums, emulsifiers and other artificial flavors and fillers.

Each variety is created with a unique base blend of almond flour, sunflower seeds and flax seeds and other whole-food ingredients, contains 4-5 grams of protein per serving, and is a good source of Vitamin E and manganese. The Fine Ground Sea Salt flavor is vegan and paleo-friendly, and the Farmhouse Cheddar variety is made with organic, rBST-free cheddar cheese.

That ingredient and nutritional profile creates substantial opportunities to build grab-and-go sales because of current trends in consumer snacking behavior. In fact, 33 percent of U.S. consumers report a shift to healthier snack foods over the past few years; 44 percent say they want natural/organic snacks; 57% want snacks that contain vitamins and minerals; and 65% consider crackers a healthy and easy snack option.

“The cracker category in general has posted strong 33 percent sales growth since 2013, driven in part by consumer interest in healthy snacking, but foodservice offerings still tend to be dominated by less healthy items like chips and candy bars. That leaves today’s increasingly health-conscious consumers with very few snacks to buy in foodservice environments,” said Simple Mills CEO Katlin Smith. “Our new grab-and-go cracker packs can help fill that gap with real food, strong brand recognition, and packaging that clearly conveys the product’s ‘free from’ and nutritional advantages.”