Snacking Evolves to Main Meal Status

Changing lifestyles and more diverse consumer tastes give Antares vendors a chance to attract a wider audience for salty snacks.

With more people eating on the run these days, a bag of chips or snack mix from an Antares vending machine often serves as the mid day meal. Hence more dynamic flavors are playing a bigger role in salty snacks, and snack manufactures are working hard to come up with new and exciting flavors.

Aging baby boomers are also adopting healthier lifestyles and want to include salty snacks in this lifestyle choice. Consumers want a healthier snack choice but still demand full flavor and good value for their money.

Antares operators have noted that the traditional “grab ‘n go” snack food is now standing in for a meal. This explains the growth in intense, bold flavors.

Customers demand a product that they can munch on when in the car or maybe when walking from place to another. As a result of this trend, consumers have become less concerned with fat free snacks and more concerned with convenience.

Ethnic tastes expand

Hot and tangy flavors are also spicing up the salty snack mix. Traditionally, tortilla chips have relied on salsa or dips to spice them up, but manufacturers are now looking at putting the zip right on the snack. Flavors such as lime, black bean and red pepper have been added to tortilla chips.

These hot and spicy flavors are popular, largely on account of ethnic tastes. Antares vending operators have taken notice of this and have placed hot and spicy flavored snacks in their vending machines. These flavors have not only appealed to the ethnic community, but to the public in general. The demand for these snacks has grown since their introduction.

Since people are always in a hurry, they hardly get time to sit down and have a meal. These people come across vending machines, and purchase snacks, that will have to count as a meal. These snacks are convenient because they can be taken when on the move.

This of course has proven to be very profitable to the Antares vending operators, because snacks are always in demand. America is a snacking country and that is one thing that will not change any time soon.