New Flavors Cash In
By John J. Pierce

Wegmans leverages store brand by flavoring kettle-cooked potato chips with its Asian barbecue sauce.

Retailers playing innovative variations on traditional snack products - chips, nuts, trail mixes and more. Walgreens goes for healthy image in Daily Dose line.

Potato chips are a snack food staple. Even kettle-cooked potato chips aren’t new to store brands. But Wegmans, Rochester, NY, has come up with a new angle: kettle-cooked potato chips flavored with its own store brand barbecue sauces.

“Our Asian Barbecue sauce has been so popular, we have found a new way to bring that tangy sweet flavor to you,” reads a blurb on the back of the bag for one variety. “Just like our other Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, these Asian Barbecue chips are made the old-fashioned way… hand cooked in kettles. And by cooking them one batch at a time, extra attention is given to be sure your chips are exceptional with a crispier crunch and heartier potato flavor.”

Memphis Barbecue chips are also made with one of Wegmans’ own barbecue sauces, with an image of the sauce bottle on the front of the package and a promotional tie-in message on the back. Other varieties in the new kettle-cooked line are Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper (with an image of salt and pepper shakers) and Jalapeno (with a jalapeno pepper image). All four, which were featured in mass stack displays in mid-April, also come in reclosable bags. That was a plus for one shopper who gave her name online as Michelle:

My husband and I love these [Asian Barbecue] chips. The flavor is outstanding and the fact that we can seal the bag without using a chip clip is great! A very affordable price as well! Also love the Memphis BBQ! You’re amazing Wegmans!

Private label potato chip sales surged 31.5% to $207 million for the 52 weeks ended 3/22/2009, according to Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), Chicago, IL. Even unit sales were up 16.2%, so it wasn’t just a matter of higher prices. Offering variations that national brands don’t is the only key to success in a category where store brands account for only 2.4% of the dollar sales.

That’s the strategy at Target, Minneapolis, MN, which under its Archer Farms brand has been chipping away at the national brand hegemony with a whole raft of flavored potato chips. Marketed in full-size bags and trial sizes at checkout lines and in-store eateries, they include Jamaican Jerk, Maple Barbecue, and Black Pepper & Sea Salt (Variety packs are available online.). Baked potato crisps include Smoky Bacon & Cheddar and Seat Salt & Vinegar.

It’s the same with pretzels (a $90 million category for store brands, up 13.6%, according to IRI), with Target offering three savory varieties: Buffalo Wing, Cheddar Ranch, Honey Mustard and Maui Onion. Then there is the Archer Farms bottled nut line, with unique ideas like Dill Pickle Cashews, Wasabi Soy Almonds and more. Archer Farms tortilla chips include Spinach & Artichoke and Cinnamon Sugar, not to mention organic white, yellow and blue corn varieties.

Snack nuts, reports IRI, rang up private label sales of $604.6 million last year, an 11.5% increase, for a 33.8% share. Store brands are just as common at drug stores as at supermarkets–sometimes even more so. Walgreens, Deerfield, IL, offers a broad range under the Walgreens, Walgreens Select and Deerfield Farms brands–the last includes small packets of cashews, almonds hazelnuts, pistachio kernels and premium mixed nuts sub-branded Daily Dose, apparently to stress nutritional benefits.

There’s also a Daily Dose resealable pack version of Cranberry trail mix, with seven packets–“one week’s supply.” Raisin & Nut and Chocolate & Nut trail mixes come in gable-topped cartons with eight 1.75 oz packages, and there are also bags of fire-roasted pistachios with seven 100-calorie packets. Other Deerfield Farms trail mixes include Mountain, Sweet & Salty, Tropical and Organic. Canister nuts come under both the Walgreens Select and Walgreens brands; the former includes a Cashew & Mac blend, while the latter offers bonus packs (“20% more” than the national brand).

Healthy Snacks Soar

Nutritional snack and trail mix sales in store brands were up 39.4% over the past year to $103 million and a 28.1% share, again according to IRI. Once again, Target is the leader, at least in variety, with Tropical Fruit & Berry, Peanut Yogurt Medley, Ambrosia Blend, Zen Party, Sweet Cajun, Tex-Mex, Monster and more. Besides standard 12 oz resealable packs ranging in price from $3.29 to $6.99, Target offers a rotating selection of trial sizes at $1.19.

Fairway, Plainview, NY, a small New York City area chain that doesn’t do much private label in staples, goes all out with its own dried fruits: mango slices, angelino plums, apple rings, Mirabelle plums, kiwi slices and crystallized ginger, plus imports like South African guava, French papaya and Turkish apricots. All these and more are mass displayed along one wall, with little or no branded competition.
Raisins still dominate the private label dried fruit segment, according to IRI, at $64.7 million, but with only a 9.8% gain in dollar sales. Dried plums are up only 3.5% at $21.2 million. Dried apricots, cranberries, figs, fruit chips and miscellaneous fruits are all gaining at double-digit rates, although from small bases–fruit chips more than doubled, at 102% to $2.8 million. Walgreens offers dried cranberries, apricots and cherries in both bags and boxes under the Deerfield Farms brand.

Another category Walgreens has gotten into is dried meat snacks, including summer sausage, beef snack bites and snack sticks, also under the Deerfield Farms brand. Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, Dallas, TX, meanwhile, has debuted beef jerky in original, teriyaki and peppered versions under its 7-Select brand. There’s a similar situation to that in dried fruits, IRI reports: jerky still dominates the segment at $24.5 million, but the growth is all in other meat snacks–up 51.4% to $5.9 million.