Can healthy snacking have its cake and eat it?

Three in four shoppers say they are happy for food manufacturers to change snack recipes to make them healthier – so long as they are just as tasty.

That’s according to IGD research from last October. The question is: how do you ensure taste isn’t compromised in the name of snacking more healthily?

Premier Foods reckons it has the answer. The manufacturer launched the non-HFSS Mr Kipling Deliciously Good cakes range in April 2022, with seven initial lines including Angel, Lemon, Bakewell Chocolate, Chocolate Caramel Slices, as well as Bramley Apple Pie and Bramley Apple & Blackcurrant Pie.

The key selling point is they contain 30% less sugar than their standard Mr Kipling peers, as well as up to 10 times the fibre. They also weigh in as low as 99 calories per portion.

To achieve this, recipes for the growing range feature higher levels of vegetable fibres to impart sweetness. As these pass through the stomach largely undigested, the cakes are less calorific.

“In a category where taste is so important, Mr Kipling Deliciously Good offers a better-for-you alternative without compromising on taste,” explains Premier Foods brand director for sweet treats Naomi Shooman.

It’s working out in sales terms, too. The Deliciously Good range accrued £10m in the year to 2 April, according to IRI.

Such success is why Premier Foods isn’t alone in using vegetable fibres to make healthier snacks.

Graze launched Sticky Toffee Pudding Oat Boosts in April this year. It was hailed as its most decadent product, despite containing 45% less sugar than the average cereal bar. This has largely been achieved using chicory root fibre to impart sweetness and texture.

“Chicory root fibre is something we have used for a long period of time because we remain committed to using only natural ingredients,” says Graze CEO Joanna Allen. Other Oat Boost flavours make use of it, including Banana, Cocoa Orange and Cocoa Vanilla.

Allen argues that the new Oat Boosts prove that taste needn’t be lost for health. “We don’t believe that health and taste should be a compromise – our philosophy is that these two elements can co-exist,” she says.

So maybe health-conscious snackers can have their cake and eat it.