SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. — When it comes to snacks, companies don’t need to reinvent the category. Rather, businesses need to identify those gaps and other “white spaces” in the retail market where their brands can thrive by meeting consumers’ needs in ways that other snacks don’t.

That was one of several themes by a panel of snack producers who revealed how the industry can rely on “innovation for growth” to expand a category that depends on a steady stream of new products to fuel sales and drive consumption.

“Innovation is who we are,” noted Matt Weiss, founder and chief executive officer of Rind Snacks, New York, speaking at SNAC International’s recently held Executive Leadership Forum. “It’s our job to disrupt the status quo, and they don’t have to be revolutionary breakthroughs. They can be a different take on the category.”

Rind Snacks, for instance, focuses on the “power of the peel” that highlights the natural benefits that all parts of the food bring to consumers. Weiss described it as new products that bring great taste with zero waste.

“It’s not an ingredient that we add that makes our products different,” he explained. “It’s what we don’t subtract, which is nature’s original packaging, which is the rind.”

For Biena Snacks, the journey of innovation began in 2012 when Poorvi Patodia, founder and CEO of the Needham, Mass., company, was pregnant and in search of healthier snacks. For her, innovation was driven by answering a few key questions.

“Can we do better? Can I do better in snacks?” she asked. 

The result has been a line of roasted chickpeas, lentil and bean snacks that Patodia grew up eating and are popular all over the world from Italy and India to the Caribbean Islands. She recalled how she was initially “laughed out of the rooms” by co-manufacturers, but a dozen years later, Biena is a leader in its segment. She added “the future is really bright” for those who provide better-for-you snacks with a real value proposition.

“We have been on this journey for 12 years that has been difficult but rewarding because the brand is in about 15,000 stores nationally,” she told an audience of snack executives. “We’re the category leader with about a 65% share.”

For Kirsten Sutaria, director of R&D and innovation for Seattle-based SkinnyDipped, the emphasis is on developing more healthful sweet and salty nut, cashew and almond snacks that taste like a dessert, but offer less sugar and real ingredients that are found in the kitchen.

“My personal ethos as a product developer is figuring out ways to deliver on these great experiences that we all know and love while trying to be a bit better and really not compromising,” she said.

Like some of the other panelists, Sutaria has taken her previous experience working at large consumer product goods companies to add a process and rigor to new product development at what she described as a “scrappy brand.” Together, the operations, marketing and commercialization team work together to focus on new product innovation.

Denise Woodard, founder and CEO of Partake Foods, Jersey City, NJ, described how she was inspired to reimagine the snack category by her frustration with finding products that her daughter with several allergies could enjoy. She focused on developing more inclusive products that tasted good and are made with ingredients that people with dietary restrictions can “partake” in on a regular basis.

The panel was moderated by Brandon Partridge, a consumer goods executive and strategist with 202 Consumer Ventures. He noted how a vortex of issues around ingredient prices, raw material availability and SKU rationalization has prompted many companies to put more resources into their core and highest performing brands, sometimes at the expense of innovation and new products.

“But it’s also clear that the growth in this category will come in the form of innovative new products and meeting consumer needs in new ways,” he said.