Little Foods—Big Potential

Checkers also is launching a line of traditional classic bone-in chicken wings, allowing customers to order as few as two wings, and offers fries with ranch dressing, Cheddar cheese sauce, bacon crumbles and chili, in various combinations.

Chicken’s popularity is due, in part, to its identification with healthier eating. The McDonald’s Snack Wrap, made with grilled or fried chicken, is “a wonderful example of a perceived better-for-me, healthier, economical ($1.49) snack item,” notes Lombardi, adding that it also “fills the need for a lunch item for people with smaller appetites.”

We’ve become a nation of grazers. “People are eating less more often,” says Joy. “Instead of the traditional three meals a day, it’s being replaced by four or five smaller meals.... It’s not necessarily snacking, it’s just the new way of eating.”

SMALL SIZE, PRICE—BIG FLAVOR

Technomic’s “Snacking” Consumer Trend Report found that diners specified flavor as the most-important factor in their selection of a snack. Likewise, Mintel’s “Snack Attack” report finds that restaurants are pursuing “consumers’ ever-increasing fondness for quick and portable foods” and that “small portions, big flavors and low prices will lure in hungry ‘snackers.’”

Defining a “snack” as an inexpensive, smaller portion designed to satisfy consumers’ craving for just one bite to two, the Mintel report notes that the use of the word “snack” in restaurant menus increased 300% between the first quarter of 2005 and the fourth quarter of 2007. QSRs represented the largest share of that increase, at 64%, followed by casual dining, fast-casual and family/midscale venues at 25%, 8% and 3%, respectively.

As Balzer notes, one of the big draws for snacks, especially in today’s slow economy, is their low price point. The average price for all snack items is $2.67, according to the Mintel report, and this figure is down 17% from the first quarter of 2007.