The shifts snack suppliers need to understand
- Some younger consumers are choosing fewer, more nutritionally complete eating occasions, prompting suppliers to reconsider what snacks should deliver
- Gen Z’s interest in protein extends to nutritional balance, ingredients and portion size.
- Higher spending by solo Millennial diners challenges assumptions that individual customers want smaller, cheaper meals
- Retail competition is pushing cafés and takeaway outlets to give customers stronger reasons to choose their food
A snack fits neatly between breakfast, lunch and dinner, until the customer stops eating that way. Some younger consumers are choosing fewer, more nutritionally complete eating occasions, according to Circana’s Edurne Uranga, putting pressure on suppliers to reconsider products designed as a little something to keep people going until their next meal.
“Many younger consumers are moving away from the traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner routine, often opting for fewer but more nutritionally complete eating occasions,” says Uranga, VP Foodservice Europe. “As a result, they pay closer attention to ingredients, protein content, nutritional balance and portion size.”
That’s a more demanding proposition than adding protein to a familiar recipe. A sandwich, savoury bake or snack eaten instead of lunch has to satisfy a different expectation from one bought alongside it, while cafés and takeaway outlets must persuade customers that their offer deserves the purchase over a ready-to-eat supermarket alternative.
There’s little room to assume those purchases will keep coming. Across Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, foodservice visits fell 0.7% in the year ending June 2026, according to Circana. Spending increased 1.4% to €361.2bn as average spend per visit rose 2.1%, leaving restaurants, cafés and other operators collecting more money from fewer visits.
A protein claim isn’t a meal
Circana finds that 24% of Gen Z consumers focus on high-protein consumption, while 20% focus on organic or natural products. Meanwhile, 12% practise intermittent fasting, compared with 7% of consumers overall. Suppliers looking at those figures could reasonably spot an opening for protein-enriched snacks, but Uranga describes changes that extend beyond ingredient preferences.
“This shift is also reshaping snacking. Rather than choosing purely indulgent sweet or savoury options, consumers are increasingly looking for snacks that deliver functional benefits, nutritional value and sustained energy,” she says.
Her assessment challenges the habit of defining snacks mainly by what they aren’t: breakfast, lunch or dinner. When customers organise eating around work, study, exercise or fasting, a product’s usefulness may depend more on what it provides at that moment than on the category manufacturers put it in.
A small protein-enriched bake might suit someone buying a light accompaniment to a drink yet disappoint someone expecting it to carry them through an afternoon. A larger portion might suit the second customer but deter the first. Developers need to establish which purchase they’re targeting before deciding how much protein to add or how prominently to promote it.
Manufacturers also have to deliver something people enjoy eating. Protein content, portion size and nutritional balance must work within a recipe whose texture and flavour encourage another purchase, rather than leaving the operator with an impressive menu description and a product customers don’t finish.
Uranga expects more from suppliers than products that taste good and are easy to serve. “For manufacturers supplying the foodservice industry, the focus moves beyond taste and convenience towards products that can credibly deliver on protein, naturalness, functional benefits and nutritional value,” she says.
That doesn’t mean every pastry needs reformulating or every indulgent snack needs a functional claim. The protein-focused group represents roughly one-quarter of Gen Z in this research, and its preferences shouldn’t be imposed on the rest. A café range can accommodate customers seeking nutritional substance alongside those who simply want a good cake.
Nor should manufacturers assume today’s younger consumers will retain every current habit. Uranga recommends examining what drives a behaviour and whether it persists as people age or spreads across generations before treating it as permanent.
One customer shouldn’t mean a compromised choice
Meal routines aren’t the only assumption worth revisiting. Almost 60% of foodservice occasions involve just one or two people, and solo dining accounts for a third of main-meal visits, according to Circana.
Millennials drive the solo occasion and spend around 70% more per solo visit than the same consumers do when dining in a group. That comparison concerns restaurant spending, rather than snack purchases specifically, but it challenges the idea that someone eating alone is necessarily looking for the quickest, cheapest option.
“The biggest misconception is treating solo dining as a low-value, functional occasion, or something primarily associated with older consumers,” says Uranga.
She links Millennial solo dining to working patterns and flexible routines, with individual customers deserving the attention usually given to couples, families and groups. Manufacturers supplying bakery products, snacks and desserts can help operators offer that choice without making preparation or waste harder to manage.
A savoury product portioned for one, bread supplied in quantities suited to quieter trading periods or an individual dessert could make it easier to serve a complete order. Those formats need testing with operators, but they address a practical problem: customers shouldn’t have to recruit another diner to buy the food they want.
Equally, portioning for one shouldn’t automatically mean making everything smaller. Suppliers need to distinguish between an individual serving and a deliberately light serving, particularly when a sandwich or savoury bake is being bought as the main food purchase.
“Appropriate portion sizes and menu formats, comfortable seating for one and service that doesn’t make an individual customer feel rushed can all make a difference,” says Uranga.
The commercial opportunity lies in making the choice appealing and straightforward. A customer who wants a substantial savoury item followed by something sweet should be able to order both without navigating sharing formats or accepting a meal deal that offers neither.
The supermarket is competing for the same appetite
A café’s competitor may be the supermarket down the road rather than another café. Circana finds that Gen Z and Generation Alpha over-index on retail channels for immediate consumption, bringing ready-to-eat retail products into direct competition for quick meals and snacks.
Uranga says speed and simplicity in ordering, payment and collection matter, but operators also need to understand whether the customer wants a quick meal, a study break, a social occasion or a nutrition-led purchase. Fresh preparation and personalisation can give foodservice an advantage when they improve what the customer gets.
Suppliers serving both channels therefore need to consider what makes each version worth choosing. A packaged retail sandwich and a freshly assembled café sandwich can share ingredients, but the café needs a convincing reason for the customer to wait or pay more, whether that’s the bread, filling, preparation or ability to customise the order.
Uranga also sees scope for partnerships through co-located concepts, delivery arrangements and complementary offers. Manufacturers could support both retail and foodservice rather than treating the channels as entirely separate routes to the same consumer.
Success still needs measuring beyond the sales total. Uranga recommends tracking visit frequency, customer penetration, average spending and repeat behaviour, alongside product choices, time of day, channel and solo versus group visits.
A new savoury range might increase the average bill without attracting another customer; a more substantial snack might bring someone back regularly. Operators and suppliers need to know which is happening before expanding the offer.
Snack suppliers don’t have to abandon products designed for between meals. But they do need to make room for customers whose next snack may be the meal and give them enough reason to choose it.
