If you pine for the days when you were small enough to fit a Hula Hoop on your finger, then United Biscuits may have the product for you.

The company has extended the bagged snack brand with the launch of Big Hoops, which it described as the same as standard Hula Hoops, “just a ‘hole’ lot bigger”.

Currently rolling out to stores, Big Hoops come in 160g sharing bags (rsp: £1.93) and three flavours: Original, Sour Cream & Chive and Sweet Chilli.

“Sharing formats are doing great business for retailers at the moment, and are worth £633m across all channels,” said United Biscuits UK bagged snacks marketing director George Johnston, who added that a fourth flavour, BBQ, would be sold in a £1 price-marked 100g pack for the convenience market. “It is interesting to note that sharing formats are growing even faster in impulse, at 15%, than grocery, which is up 11%. These figures are very much in line with the growing demand we are seeing for ‘big night in’ products.”

This is not the first time the brand has introduced a larger Hula Hoop in March 2001 it launched bags of Hula Hoops XL in Beef & Mustard, Chilli, Nacho Cheese and Curry Flavours. XL failed to catch on, however, and despite a revamp in 2002, was axed after a few years on shelf.

United said Big Hoops were a “very different” product to Hula Hoops XL, and added that it was confident the product would be a success.

The overall Hula Hoops brand is worth £83m and has grown 3% by value year-on-year [Nielsen 52w/e 18 June 2011].

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