Articles by Crystal Lindell

Element is a modern twist on a classic snack: rice or corn cakes coated in chocolate or fruit.

Kettle Brand, beloved for its extra crunchy and boldly flavored kettle-cooked potato chips, is expanding its expertise to a new crop of root vegetables.

“The first day beta launched, we saw someone send from California to Arizona, and then the person in Arizona turned around and sent one to Massachusetts, and then the person in Massachusetts sent one to Florida, and they hadn’t even received the gift,” says Elisabeth Vezzani. “Right from the beginning, I just felt really confident that if we gave it our all we had something.”

Nutri-Grain is launching new Fruit and Nut bars in cherry almond and blueberry almond varieties.

Diana’s Bananas' Banana Bites feature delicious ripe banana slices dipped in fine chocolate.

Companies like Skittles are sponsoring Snapchat filters and lenses for a day, and then users are voluntarily using the various brands’ images on their photos and videos.

Soon, when consumers “Taste the rainbow” in a bag of Skittles, they’ll be tasting an all-natural rainbow.

I’ll have full coverage of the Nashville trip in the March issue, and full coverage of the trip to Canada in April. But in the meantime, I want to take a moment to look at the people behind the companies.

Chocoholics rejoice! The luxurious, fine Swiss chocolate once only available overseas, is now available in North America.

“We have all the competitors that everybody else does in the States,” say founder Robin Burnette. “We have all the grocery stores, Walmart. They’re selling chocolate bars. [But] in Canada they sell all Canadian chocolate bars. A majority of Canadians go south in the winter time, so we carry a lot of U.S. chocolate bars. We’ve got that chocolate bar that you like from the States that you found, and we also bring in the British chocolate and a lot of Dutch licorice.”