Sweet, Salty, Fruity
BY JOHN J. PIERCE

Looks like just another caramel popcorn-peanut snack. But look closer; Ukrops Gourmet Clusters also have cashews, pecans and almonds.

Candy and snacks can please all kinds of tastes, and bring all kinds of people into the store-where store brands can offer unique products.

From gummi worms to potato chips to peanuts, they're guilty pleasures to consumers-although some retailers are trying to make them less guilty. They're big business, at any rate, and getting bigger every year.

Candy and snacks give store brands a chance to indulge, and even to innovate. Just about everybody has tortilla chips, for example, but Aldi, Batavia, IL, has come out with a healthier-looking version using organic blue corn.

In an unusual case of self co-branding, Aldi brands the organic chips as Fit & Active, but also refers to its standard Casa Mamita label in small print. At $1.49 a 9 oz bag, the price is light, but are the chips? Aldi doesn't make any low-fat claims; fat content per 1 oz serving is, 9% of the Daily Value; and sodium content 115mg or 5%.

There can be all kinds on variations on standard snack items. Kroger, Cincinnati, OH, offers a barbecue version of mini-rice cakes-a snack that usually comes in sweet or cheese flavors. At Food Lion, Salisbury, NC, pork rinds-a Southern regional favorite-come hot, hot, hot.

Making Snacks New

When the fastest growing item in a category-in fact, the only one that's making significant gains-is called "remaining snacks," it raises questions. ACNielsen, Chicago, IL, puts store brand sales in that miscellany at $58.4 million for 2003, up 30.1%.

One component of this is doubtless meat snacks, Meijer, Grand Rapids, MI, has expanded from beef jerky into beef nuggets; while Target Stores, Minneapolis, MN, offers vacuum-packed Cajun style dried beef under its Archer Farms Market brand.

Shaw's Supermarkets, West Bridgewater, MA, has emulated health food retailers in launching Veggie Cuts under the Shaw's Signature brand. These look rather like french fries, and are molded from potato and rice flower and a puree of either tomato and spinach or broccoli and carrot puree. Billed as less fatty than potato chips, they have 7g of at per 1 oz serving.

Traditional snack mix at Weis Markets, Sunbury, PA, boasts "60% less fat than regular potato chips." That's 4g per serving of two thirds of a cup, or 6% the Daily Value. But the more important thing here is that, at $1.49, am 8.75 oz bag costs 25% less than Chex Mix at $1.99 in both traditional and cheddar version, and that Weis is among the first to get in there and mix it up with the brand.

There can always be new tweaks to standard items. Caramel popcorn with peanuts has been around for a while in store brands, and has become practically a generic item without being positioned against Cracker Jack. So Gourmet Clusters at Ukrop's, Richmond, VA, may seem like nothing unusual-unless you check the small print and find that besides peanuts they include cashews, pecans and almonds.
I Want [You]

No, it isn't Uncle Sam on a recruiting poster, it's Target Stores in the candy section. The number two discount chain, which had carried a generic bagged line for years, has now broken out with the I Want brand.

The line, with most items retailing at $1.49 but some at 99 cents, features a common design motif: a pair of eyes above a transparent patch shaped like a smiling mouth. It is also split into four color-coded segments: Sour (light green), Chewy (orange), Fruity (purple), Creamy (orange) and Chewy (pink).

In salty snacks alone, the store brand variety these days is incredible. There are innovations like Aldi's Fit & Active tortilla chips, Meijer beef nuggets, Shaw's veggie cuts and Weis snack mix, flavor variations like Kroger BBQ rice cakes, Giant Eagle cheddar & sour cream potato chips and Food Lion hot pork rinds; and old standards like Urrops corn chips, Pathmark waffle pretzels and Trader Joe's cheese puffs.

There are also coded expressions of pleasure for each segment: Who for Sour, Yippie for Fruity, Ooo for Chewy and Mmm for Creamy. Most of the actual items are faniliar, from sour gummi worms and tearjerkers to peach rings and circus peanuts, pixy stix and orange slices and caramel creams. Wax bottles in the Fruity segment may be the least typical. But the line as a whole has a strong impact.

A different strategy is being followed by Ahold USA, Chantilly, VA, which has put B. A. Pal-a blue parrot already serving as a mascot for breakfast cereals and other products-on its bagged candy under the Stop & Shop, Giant and other brands. Then there are the fruit snacks at Pathmark, Carteret, NJ, and elsewhere that come with tie-ins to licensed characters, from the Justice League of America to Veggie Tales.

Seasonal and holiday candies are easy to create, For Valentines Day, Wegmans, Rochester, NY, came out with conversation hearts; while Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh, PA, marked Easter with sour jelly rabbits. Giant Eagle has also come out with breath mints, a fast-growing category. In another fast-growing category, Target offers gum in tins at the checkout counter, while Brooks Pharmacy, Warwick, RI, includes Dubble Bubble gum in its pegboard line.

Sometimes You Feel Like...

There isn't much new to do with nuts, but retailers can nevertheless do new things with their store brand nut programs. Duane Reade, Long Island City, NY, for example, has redressed its line of canister nuts under the Fifth Avenue brand. The new packaging really blows away the old.

Harris-Teeter, Matthews, NC, makes a big deal about its peanuts in point-of-sale material: Most peanuts come from Georgia and Alabama; at least, those are the states best known for them. But Harris-Teeter appeals to regional pride.

"We pamper our peanuts. Right from the start, our peanuts are grown in the sun-baked sandy soils of Eastern Virginia. After harvest, we pick only the freshest, super extra large peanut. Each peanut is then hand-roasted to perfection. After the very first crunch, you will discover why Virginia is for lovers-peanut lovers, that is."

Sometimes you feel like a dried fruit, too. Safeway, Pleasanton, CA, offers a lot more than raisins under its Produce Store brand: plums, apple chunks, red bing cherries and mixed fruit. Raisins come in a lot of forms now, like the mini boxes in bags at Stop & Shop, Quincy, MA.

Store Brands Love Chocolate

Walgreen's (Royal Legacy) and Aldi (Choceur) get into the high-end imported chocolate bar business, while Fred's offers chocolate-covered peanut clusters. IGA and Ukrop's both offer 2.25 chocolate bars, but Ukrop's give them catchier names. Dollar General has a whole range of brand equivalents, from Chocolate Nougat Chew to Rocklets.

At Walgreens, Deerfield, IL, the new upscale imported chocolate bars are called Royal Legacy. At Aldi, Batavia, IL, they're called Choceur. And at Ukrops, Richmond, VA standard chocolate bars are called all kinds of things.

When it comes to candy, chocolate is the big growth segment in volume, but dietetic candy and breath mints are moving up faster percentagewise. But non-chocolate candy-mostly bagged-remains single largest segment in a $261.6 million market as tracked by ACNielsem, Chicago, IL.

Store brands still account for only 1.3% of chocolate candy, but at $26.3 million, sales were up 20.3% for the segment. Walgreen's may be the largest single factor, with 6.5 oz Royal Legacy milk chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate with cashews bars, all retailing for just 99 cents and positioned against Hershey.

Big Y, Springfield, MA, which had already come out with standard 2.25 oz bars a few years ago, now boasts what it calls The Big Bar! It's not quite as big as Walgreen's-five ounces instead of 6.5-but is pre-priced the same, at 99 cents. Milk Chocolate, Milk Chocolate Crispy and Milk Chocolate with Almonds were all featured recently at four for $3.

Aldi, which has a German parent company, has an inside track on fine chocolate from Germany. For $1.69, shoppers have a choice of 7.05 oz Coffee & Cream (layered bars of white chocolate and dark chocolate), Raisins & Nuts (with whole hazelnuts), and an 11-count pack of luxury mini-chocolate bars with crème filling. Under the same brand are novelties like chocolate balls.

Standard 2.25 oz chocolate bars are appearing in more and more store brands. Ukrops has sexed them up by giving them funny names: Most Moovalous (milk chocolate), Deep Space (dark chocolate), Raspberry Rhapsody (with dark chocolate), Caramel Chaos (with milk chocolate), Jump'n Jungle Roasted Almond (with milk chocolate) and Positively Perfect Peanut Butter Truffle (with milk chocolate). All retail for 69 cents.

Then there's Dollar General, Goodletsville, TN, which came out last year with a raft of Clover Valley candy bars targeting leading national brands: Nutty Caramel Chew versus Snickers, Chocolate Nougat Chew versus Milky Way, Chewy Coconut versus Mounds, etc. Besides bars, there are things like Peanut Butter Cups versus Reese's cups, and Chocolate Covered Peppermint Crème patties versus York. Now, under the American Value secondary brand, the chain has added Rocklets, positioned against M&Ms. Like the rest, they're four for a dollar-and practically fly out of the stores.

In pegboard bagged candy, Fred's, Memphis, TN, has come out with chocolate-covered peanut clusters pre-priced at $1. But Walgreen's remains the clear leader in this segment with chocolate covered raisins, peanuts, bridge mix (Brazil nuts, peanuts, raisins and almonds) and peanut butter cups. It recently introduced one-pound versions in lie-down bags for $2.99.