It's a safe bet that nobody in the sweet-goods or pastry sectors, nobody anywhere, for that matter, expected still to be contending with COVID-19 a full year and a half after lockdowns threw the baking industry, and life as we know it, into upheaval.

Lest anyone think that the pandemic pressed "pause" on campaigns for corporate sustainability, think again. If anything, COVID-19 reminded consumers, and the snack and bakery sectors, just how interconnected we are, whether we’re selecting suppliers, expanding production, or packing a protein bar into our gym bags.

Brands in the snack-mix and nut spaces could be forgiven for waxing a little Dickensian as they look back on the year that was. For while the events that characterized 2020, and that persist, to an extent, today, don't quite measure up to "the best of times" or "the worst of times," they do tell something of "A Tale of Two Snacking Scenarios."

Conventional wisdom holds that COVID-19 had consumers searching for one thing above all others in 2020, and we're not talking toilet paper.

After a year that strained the limits of everything, including the descriptive power of adjectives like "unprecedented," "challenging" and "disruptive", something resembling "normal" (another term laid low by 2020's events) seems finally to be stumbling back to life.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, too, is "better-for-you," the catch-all classification that drives so many consumers these days and, as such, is driving snack and bakery development, as well.

Gluten-free market report and product development strategies for gluten-free snack and bakery products.

It feels a little uncomfortable admitting it, but COVID-19 may actually yield a few upsides, or at least a few opportunities for snack and bakery brands to turn the pandemic's lemons into lemon-flavored blondie bites.

There was a time, not so long ago, when nutritional boundaries were more clear-cut. "Indulgent foods weren't healthy," says Mel Festejo, COO, American Key Food Products, Closter, NJ. "They either had a surfeit of nutrients that triggered health issues, or they contained ingredients whose names raised anxiety."

Snacks have to work pretty hard to keep up with consumer preferences these days. For one, they have to be suitably snackable, i.e., convenient and portable.