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Consumers Have Growing Appetite For Sweets

December 22, 2005
While health advocates fret over America’s growing obesity problem, consumers appear to be heading for the snack aisle. An industry report says the retail market for prepared sweet baked goods has begun to creep out of a four-year sales slump that was brought on by the low-carb diet craze.

In its report, Packaged Facts, projects the sweet baked goods market, which includes shelf-stable, refrigerated, and frozen cookies, pastries, snack cakes, cakes, doughnuts, pies and muffins, will grow modestly over the next five years and reach $12.2 billion by 2010.

Between January 2004 and May 2005, the market saw a flurry of activity in terms of new product introductions, including 419 new products.

The report says manufacturers are touting their new products as both convenient and indulgent, and are taking a non-traditional approach to advertising them. Because of increasing competition, the report says the new snack products are being targeted to ethnic and generational niches.

"This is a fiercely competitive market, and it has grown more so when you take into account the soaring popularity of upscale supermarket in-store bakeries and high-profile doughnut chains, which are actively developing a cult-like following and taking sales away from the retail prepared sector," said Don Montuori, the publisher of Packaged Facts.

"With the demise of low-carb, smart marketers are now refocusing their energies on the indulgence desires of Baby Boomers by developing decadent, yet 'healthy,' baked goods that fall into their favorite buzzword categories: gourmet, natural, organic, low-sugar, and low-fat."

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