Food companies are cramming store shelves with 100-calorie packs of crackers, chips, cookies and candy, and new ones are on the way. A Morgan Stanley analyst estimates that snack packs are about 20%
more profitable than larger packages.
Frito-Lay has started selling 100-calorie servings of beef jerky. Pepperidge Farm says it is developing several more 100-calorie variations of
Goldfish and cookies, after rolling out three new ones a couple of weeks ago. Hershey says it will offer 100-calorie bags of Twizzlers, and Nabisco will sell two new cookies: Alpha-Bits and Animals
Choco Crackers, in 100-calorie packs.
Michael Simon, vice president for snacks at Pepperidge Farm, predicts that the market for these pint-size packages could easily double because of
their simple appeal: They help consumers eat less without having to count calories themselves. But some nutritionists say the logic of snack packs misses the point -- a little junk food is better than
a lot of junk food, but it's still not better than an apple or broccoli.
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