November is fast approaching and it’s the perfect time to roll-out seasonal offerings for consumers over the next three months. As a R&D house that manufactures all of our custom formulated items under one roof, SIS is perfectly positioned to accommodate any seasonal concepts and equipped to do so in a rapid fashion.
Below is just a spattering of concepts to get marketing and product developments wheels turning. Contact Ross Stewart at (312) 254-3539, ext. 18 today and we will jump at the opportunity to allow our products to speak for themselves!
- Pumpkin Pie Filling
- Sweet Potato Pie Filling
- Apricot Filling
- Cranberry Filling
- Toasted Marshmallow
- Cranberry-Orange Filling
- Pomegranate Filling
- Sweet Pear Filling
- Cranberry-Apple Filling
Can’t stay away from the discourse surrounding consumer’s demands for better-for-you snack offerings. The intersection of on-the-go consumers who demand better-for-you category of snacks often lands in convenience store aisles, and the data suggests that the C-store segment of the market is not shrinking anytime soon. In fact, convenience store sales increased more than 5% year-to-year from ’14 to ’15 with no expectations of that trend reversing course.
It may well be past time for ingredient declaration standards to be agreed-upon between manufacturers and consumers before the food industry becomes mired in lawsuits and wasted developments. For all of the push towards health and wellness trends—which consumers have now been demanding of the market for at least a decade—it does astound that the FDA has only this year asked for public comment on what the word “Natural” means on food labeling. In May of this year, the FDA opened the topic up for public comment and as of August 2016, more than 5,000 comments have been filed in response. Now, recall again how long consumers had to wait for the Nutrition Labeling changes to be implemented into the marketplace? If the designation of what constitutes “Natural” on our food labeling takes nearly as much time, it is fair to assume that resource spend within industry by those protecting themselves from lawsuit will dwarf the spend associated with Nutrition Label changes.
Millennial-parents are dedicating space in their cupboards to snacking food options that, as early as a few years ago, were not available in grocery aisles. Weighed against Gen X & Baby Boomers, Millennial-parents are in a league of their own when it comes to what foods they allow their kids to consume and the market which they represent is only growing and becoming more influential to the food industry each year. More conscious of processed ingredients & less likely to purchase foods that are perceived to be ‘unhealthy’, the industry is scrambling to rush product to market that better fits their demands.
The annual IDDBA report (What’s in Store – 2015) provides excellent data and analysis on evolving consumer trends spreading across all platforms of 
We wrote in this space back in March 2014 about the changes that had been proposed by the FDA to overhaul nutrition labels on packaged foods. At that time, public comment on the proposal was opened up and we waited for the industry to respond. Turns out, the American Bakers Association had significant criticism to offer in a 31-page dossier filed to the US FDA prior to the August 1 deadline for comments.
It is hardly a surprise - changes to Nutrition Labels have been anticipated for some time - but the FDA has officially sent proposals to the White House for review as of late February. Details are now pouring out regarding some specifics contained in the proposals and we are now in the early stages of the 90 day period where public comment on the proposals is accepted through the Federal Register. Among the proposed changes that caught our eye, requiring information about the amount of “added sugars” in food products is perhaps the most striking as more and more studies are released on how exactly millennials are making their purchasing choices in the grocery aisle. We should be hearing much more on these developments towards the end of May and into June, but as of yet we have not seen much - if any - public backlash to the proposals.