The new Organic Days range includes: Organic Cranberry Mix, Organic Nut Mix, Organic White Chocolate Apricots, Organic Trail Mix and Organic Fruit and Berry Mix.
The Natural Days snacks range includes flavoured nut products with natural flavourings such as Hot Chilli Cashews; and Sea Salt and Black Pepper Cashews.
Over the past few years snacking has become a way of life for time-poor Britons. With increasingly busy lives, people are looking for a convenient way to fill the hunger gap – the handy 50gm packs are ideal to keep in a pocket or handbag.
The products will be supplied to the trade on clip strips, ideal for positioning at point of sale to encourage impulse purchases.
Initial feedback from retailers and wholesalers has been positive with comments such as ‘ideal for children’s lunch boxes’ – a growing market as increasing concerns over the link between unhealthy foods and obesity and new restrictions on advertising to children reshapes the market.
According to Datamonitor research, consumers find it difficult to combine health and taste on-the-go and would like to effortlessly combine nutrition with taste. The aim of the Organic Days range is to allow people to indulge without the guilt factor.
The snacks, ideal companion to a healthy lifestyle, include high-fibre seeds and nuts and superfoods such as blueberries and cranberries. Blueberries have a low glycemic load (GL) content (the measure of the impact of food on blood sugar levels) which results in sustained energy release throughout the morning.
The health benefits of blueberries are numerous and can lead to a reduction in the risk of some types of breast cancer due to a compound similar to the one discovered over a decade ago in grape skins.
Recent figures from Mintel show that retail sales of nuts, seeds and dried fruit increased by 34 per cent between 2001 and 2005 to £449 million.
Furthermore, according to a brand report based on sales at more than 74,000 grocery stores, the fastest growing food and drink brands in 2006 were those that are better for people. In almost every product category –snacks, cereals, bread, soft drinks and yogurt – the grocery brands that were selling well were those with a healthier product proposition.
Day Plus One has reacted innovatively to the surge in interest in the healthier snack option. As well as its extensive Organic Days and Natural Days product list its service can be tailor-made to wholesalers’ requirements, offering unique snack mixes, with different weights and under own brand labels.
“For the consumer organic products are intrinsically linked to this new healthier approach to snack buying,” says Adrian Lauchlan, founder of Day Plus One. Organic sales have hit the £2bn mark for the first time, up 22 per cent on 2005 figures and one in six consumers have purchased packaged organic goods.
