Over the last 10 years, demand for healthy snack options has soared in Australia, and it has had an impact at the sweeter end of the supermarket shelf.
According to research from Roy Morgan, healthy and savoury snacks are the top performers in the category, which sees 90 per cent of Australian adults consume packaged snacks each week.
Savoury snacks lead the pack, consumed by 66 per cent of Australians, healthy snacks such as museli bars grew by 3.2 per cent to stand at 54.7 per cent, followed by chocolates at 48.1 per cent and yoghurt at 44.8 per cent.
Sweet biscuits suffered the biggest hit in the last decade, down 8.2 per cent to 41.2 per cent, but ahead ice cream at 39.0 per cent and lollies or gum at 30.2 per cent.
“Over the past decade the proportion of Australians who regularly consume packaged snacks has declined slightly, moving from 90.8 per cent to 88.5 per cent,” Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said.
“The biggest increase has occurred in the healthy snack category, which includes items such as muesli bars, breakfast bars and rice crackers, although as the consumer organisation, Choice, and nutrition experts have often noted, there is a wide variation as to how ‘healthy’ products in this category actually are.”
