This document combines the research and analysis on fresh vegetable snacking undertaken for project VG14024. The purpose of this project was to undertake market research around the opportunity to create more vegetable snacking options, and including quantifying market size.

The five components assessed were:

• The Australian snack food market.
• Australian snack food distribution channels.
• International retail snacking range analysis.
• Australian consumer snacking behaviour.
• Quantification of identified vegetable snack food opportunities.

All research and analysis findings generated in the project are included in the five parts of the Output section of this document, including a set of key findings specific to each section. This enables the document to work as a reference source for vegetable growers seeking information on aspects of the snack food market. The consolidated and summary project key findings are as follows:

1. The demand for snacks is common across 87% of Australian households, and unlikely to change in the near term.
2. The total snack food market has an annual retail value of $9.33b. Most snack foods are processed shelf stable products that are aligned with well supported brands. However, a substantial 40% are viewed as “Healthy snacks”, with fresh fruit contributing over half of these sales.
3. Supermarkets dominate the retail distribution of snacks by a substantial amount over other channels.
4. Processed healthy snack foods will be welcomed by many if not most distribution channels. However, the options for fresh or fresh cut snacks are more limited and restricted by distributor and end reseller capacity to handle the fresh product form.
5. Apart from the challenges of handling a perishable product, there are substantial barriers to successfully launching a range of vegetable based snack products into the Australian food market. Most of these barriers are related to the FMCG level of competition these products will encounter.
6. Based on success in global markets, there are apparent opportunities to introduce cut and peeled ‘mini’ carrots into the Australian market.
7. There is also an apparent opportunity to add a mixed cut vegetable snacking range, which contains the likes of carrots & celery, to the Australian market. These products are being offered globally in both punnet and heal-sealed tray packs.
8. The Australian market has very few products that combine vegetables with fruit, crackers, seasoning or other ingredients. This is an apparent opportunity to directly target vegetable snacking, albeit with the challenges arising from producing a mixed-ingredient fresh prepack.
9. Small sized whole vegetables the likes of tomatoes and cucumbers are the highest volume.