Globally Inspired Snacks - Guest Insight with Native

The market is saturated with crisps and popcorn, using the same old snacks with the same old ingredients. Consumers are getting bored. Street food and world food is an increasingly growing trend within snacking and consumers are wanting more from brands with this and can deliver on both taste and health. One of the big driving factors to look for is the variety of flavours and delicious ingredients that are changing the face of savoury snacks. However, consumers are constantly stuck in the gap between wanting to treat their taste buds, yet also be mindful of their health & nutrition. Sadly, 32% of consumers in our country still believe that healthy snacks taste worse than their more indulgent counterparts.

Helping to bring street food and global tastes to the world of snacking, are a new wave of challenger brands such as Native Snacks. Take a closer look at this new opportunity with guest insight from Charlie Bowker, Co-Founder at Native.

Globally Inspired Snacks are Trending

We want to share new and exciting snacks, inspired by the incredible street foods of the world and pair them with flavours that people know and love such as Salt & Vinegar or Sweet Chilli. We hit the holy grail between healthy and indulgent with added excitement of enticing tastes and textures through our packs of Super Street Snacks.

Globally inspired street food products are bang on trend and selling well. Native gives a foodie adventure like no other brand with our range of Super Street Snacks. Better-for-you is one of the fastest growing categories and by using new ingredients such as Popped Lotus Seeds, we are able to show really attractive health credentials - under 99 calories a bag, 60% less fat than traditional crisps, vegan, gluten free and baked not fried. This paired with the story of street food gives us a recipe for success.

However, we feel that there is a real opportunity to go one step further than the likes of Walkers Sensations, using genuinely new street food base ingredients, such as Popped Lotus Seeds, and pair them with flavours that people know and love to drive familiarity.

Brands that are trying to differentiate themselves from crisps or popcorn brands tend to use the same base ingredients such as lentil flour, potato flour, chickpea flour etc. By using unique base ingredients, we are providing retail partners a genuine point of differentiation for their customers, whilst also providing an attractive gross margin. We also understand that, when introducing a new snack to the market, there needs to be some familiarity to a snack and that’s why we use flavours that people know and love. The flavour choices have also been data driven with them all being in the top performing flavours according to Kantar. This has led to u strong rate of sale and high repeat purchase rate of over 38%.

Taking a Foodie Trip to C-Stores

As a brand that has street food at the heart of what we do, there are a number of different marketing activations that we will be running such as sampling at street food events, food occasions and also key promotional activity around calendar events.

Covid has led to consumers cooking more at home and using more street food meal kits to keep themselves entertained. More so than ever, consumers are open to trying new products and want to be able to “take a foodie trip” abroad whilst they can’t actually travel. Covid has also led to consumers shopping more locally in convenience stores and online and this presents the perfect opportunity to tap into these channels and allow consumers to try new products.

Consumers will continue to want to explore world foods and street food until they are able to visit the countries and this presents a really exciting opportunity for Native Snacks to tap into. We believe that street food is here to stay as a trend and brands such as Bol and Wicked Kitchen are backing this up in other categories. We have some really exciting NPD launching later this year which takes consumers on a taste trip elsewhere, but also tapping into a different eating occasion.

Ordering Native Snacks Wholesale with Epicurium

There are many amazing, innovative, fast-growing food and drink brands in the UK. As experts in tasty and interesting snacks, you can get the best challenger and new snacks from the most innovative brands from us – including Native Snacks. With independent brands stealing a march on the more established brand names, driven by authenticity and quality. Now more than ever you need to differentiate your offer. With a quick turnaround of 24-48 hours, no minimum order number and free delivery on any order over £80, our team here at Epicurium can have you tapping into freshest healthy snacks in no time.