The snack-based line will hit retail shelves this fall, including breaded shrimp with sriracha-buffalo spice blend, bacon-sriracha shrimp, and hickory bacon-wrapped scallops under the Sea Cuisine brand.
High Liner Foods’ new Small Bites, under its Sea Cuisine brand, will hit retail store shelves this fall in a bid to appeal to the habits of millennials and others inspired to take up the increasingly popular snacking lifestyle, Undercurrent News reported.
The company is positioning snack-sized products, such as breaded shrimp with sriracha-buffalo spice blend, in the frozen aisle as well as the increasingly heavily trafficked perimeter of the grocery store, the latter of which industry analysts such as CivicScience.com say are getting increasingly more play as consumers turn to convenient, freshly prepared foods.
The line does not veer too far from what has worked in the past—bacon-added and breaded additions still pervade the line’s offerings—but it also adds adventuresome flavor profiles geared towards millennials, Undercurrent reported.
“Millennials are snackers and are looking for multiple light meals throughout the day compared to the traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner consumers have become accustomed to,” Jeff Tank vice president of retail marketing, explained to Undercurrent. “To target this group of shoppers, we are developing foods, like Small Bites.
“While millennials might be at the forefront of this trend, we are seeing more and more shoppers also interested in eating small dishes. We have found 58% of consumers snack at least twice a day, so we believe this new line appeals to the masses.”
Supporting High Liner’s assessment that the snacking trend is growing, a Technomic study from 2014 showed 51% of consumers snack at least twice a day, up from 48% the year prior. According to High Liner’s data, 33% of small plates are eaten as a main meal these days, allowing the company to position the product not only as an appetizer or a snack but also a meal. This statistic may prove particularly important considering that not all snackers are looking for substantive food such as seafood. Technomic’s 2014 survey showed 71% of snacking was dedicated to candy,Undercurrent reported.
But High Liner is banking not only on capturing consumer attention through the size and store placement of the product. It also aims to tap into their penchant for interesting flavor combinations. According to an article published by Gordon Foodservice, written by the chef, food writer and trend tracker Gerry Ludwig, one of the main food attributes millennials look for is “new or unique foods and flavors,” Undercurrent reported.
On this note, the Small Bites line gets creative, includes bacon sriracha shrimp, a sriracha spice blended with cream cheese, and a tail-off shrimp hand-wrapped in roasted bacon and hickory bacon wrapped scallops.
Millennials are not only an influential segment of the market, they are also a large one. According to Pew Research Center, they are set to overtake the baby boomer generation in terms of population this year. Tank said these days, millennials are leading the way in emerging food trends, one of which includes looking for multiple light meals instead of the traditional three, Undercurrent reported.
The company gathered inspiration on the flavor profiles for the line from an experiment that piggy-backed on a trend also quite popular with millennials: food trucks. The company’s Sea Cuisine line did a taco bar tour across the United States during the summer of last year, visiting five major cities from Milwaukee to Cincinnati. The “Taco Bar” created in the likeness of a restaurant, featured culinary ambassadors such as chef Hosea Rosenberg, founder of Blackbelly Catering in Denver, to serve up Sea Cuisine inspired tacos.
Like with that tour, the new line has “taken the idea of street food in general and tapped into that trend when coming up with the concept of this small plate line,” Tank said.
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