Foodservice Snack and Dessert Trends in the U.S.

But the devil is in the details. With their low price points, high portability, and upselling potential, snacking strategies can boost mid-morning and mid-afternoon sales; drive guest traffic; and leverage on-site upselling to higher-priced items or bundled meals. The bottom line is that snacking strategies can not only help operators address incremental “true snacking” occasions, but they can also use snackable items as carrots to entice customers to purchase more food and beverages—and give consumers highly portable food options in the bargain.

Snack and Dessert Trends in the U.S. Foodservice Market provides needed insight into the consumer snacking decision-making process; snacking menu pricing and product trends; and foodservice snacking sales (by restaurant segment and by demographic), helping industry participants position themselves accordingly.

With proprietary consumer research laying the foundation, the report analyses consumer attitudes and behaviors influencing foodservice snacking behavior. Themes addressed include where and how snacks are eaten, how the snacking purchase decision relates to consumer activity and routine, and consumer hunger and health purchase motivations. The report also assesses “consumer dessert influencers,” factors that play into the decision to order restaurant dessert during the dinner hour. Themes addressed include dessert formats and purchase incentives; and desserts as conditional options which assesses the influence of cost, satiation and calorie considerations on the purchase decision). As part of this analysis, we detail snacking usage according to restaurant type and to prepared foods use at convenience stores and grocery stores.

We also analyze the snacking patterns and restaurant preferences of five Snacking Lifestyle groups: Carefree Snackers; Fast Food Slighting Hurried Healthy Snackers; Hurried Healthy Snackers; Calorie-Conscious Small Mealers; and Healthy Calorie-Conscious Snackers. With this analysis, restaurants can tailor their incentives to fit the purchasing patterns of these important groups.

Snack and Dessert Trends in the U.S. Foodservice Market also analyzes leading snack-centric restaurant brands, including menu strategies and new menu item introductions; core users; snacking tendencies; food, diet and health attitudes; and trended sales metrics.

The report also includes “Share of stomach” snack and nonalcoholic beverage sales analysis, which includes 5-year sales trends for the fast food/quick-service restaurant and full-service restaurant segments, with forecasts for 2010 and 2011; guest traffic frequency analysis of leading snack-centric restaurant brands, giving a directional perspective on current sales trends; and trended snack and nonalcoholic beverage sales analysis by demographic, including 4-year sales historical sales trends and spending according to key demographics, such as age, income, region, and race/ethnicity.