Trendspotting at the 2025 Sweets & Snacks Expo

Two weeks later, I have just about recovered from the Sweets & Snacks Expo, the annual show held by the National Confectioners Association. This year, for the second year in a row, it was held at the Indiana Convention Center, in Indianapolis, and next year it will transition to Las Vegas, rotating between two years in Indy and one year in Vegas. 

There were plenty of trends to see at the Expo, some of which were expected and some of which were more surprising.

The expected:

• Lower-sugar or sugar-free candy: There were plenty of candy brands featuring sugar-free candy or candy with lower sugar, including Michigan-based Zolli Candy, whose founder, Alina Morse, started the brand when she was just nine years old. Hershey is currently working on a zero-sugar gummy, as well.
• Pickle-flavored snacks and candy: Pickle-flavored innovation is not new, but the trend has really taken off in the past year (who can forget Claussen x Baked by Melissa's pickle cupcakes, from July 2024?). Nassau Candy had dill pickle pretzels at its booth, which I found interesting, and Lupy Lups, a cotton candy company, had a pickle with chamoy sauce flavor. 
• Spicy flavors: But with a twist of unexpected, such as Nassau Candy's spicy blue raspberry gummy bears, a flavor I hadn't seen out in the "wild" before. 
• Dubai chocolate: This has been popping up everywhere lately, but one surprise is that major brands are now picking up the trend, such as Lindt with its new Dubai chocolate bar. 
• Freeze-dried candy: But again with some interesting newcomers, especially from Ferrara's Spree, SweeTarts, and Lemonhead brands.
• Celebrity partnerships: Giada De Laurentiis was on hand at the Loacker booth to sign cookbooks and help promote its 100th anniversary. An unexpected partnership: MrBeast and Jack Link's, his first ever collaboration on a co-branded product. The new line of meat snack multipacks will feature individual-sized packs of beef jerky and meat sticks, and will showcase MrBeast's signature branding.

The unexpected:

• Cotton candy-flavored confectionery items: More of a "newstalgia" item than new, I saw a few products featuring a cotton candy flavor, including Perfetti Van Melle's Trident Vibes, and Maud Borup's chocolate bar with cotton candy flavor.
• Protein everything: Not entirely unexpected—we've been writing about meat snacks on SF&WB for a while now, for example—but definitely ramped up from previous years. An influencer I follow on Instagram posted about the Texas Roadhouse booth, for example, which is actually a license being used, and I stopped by on my last day of the show. The booth had TXR-branded meat snacks and jerky, as well as a "What the Chip!" branded chicken chip, which was delicious; it tasted a bit like bacon, but was actually made of chicken, with a whopping 45 g of protein per jar. 
• Novelty candies. This was an expected category, to be sure, but innovations continue to abound. For example, Bazooka will be releasing its Juicy Drop Gummy Mystery Cube, in partnership with Amos Sweets, this upcoming January 2026, which won a Most Innovative New Product Award (MINPA) at the show. It's similar to Amos's peelable gummies, but in cube form, with some cute shapes, too. 

I made sure to leave time to attend the 5x5 sessions for both candy and snack this year, too, which feature five Startup Street companies (businesses who have been in the industry for three years or less, and who are attending the Expo for the first time). Samples of each product are passed out to 5x5 attendees, as well.

The candy 5x5 included Hormbles Chormbles, a zero-sugar, 100-calorie candy bar created by the founder of RXBar. The bar uses whey and milk protein, and surprisingly was rather tasty.

The 5x5 also included Happy Candy, a vegan, better-for-you gummy touting 70% less sugar than its competitors; Protein Candy, another BFY brand which was on Canada's version of Shark Tank for its low-sugar flavors; and Refresh Gum, a caffeinated, sugar-free gum with flavors like Garden Mint. The last company of the five was a Dubai chocolate company that also produces freeze-dried candy, and which claimed to "launch trends first," such as the chocolate.

I'm looking forward to seeing what trends and features next year's iteration of the Expo will bring—and what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas, at least when it comes to snack and confectionery trends.

Related: Attending the Sweets & Snacks Expo as a first-timer