
All America is eating right now, it seems, is bars. Bars for breakfast, bars for lunch. Oat bars, paleo bars, protein bars, bars for women. Bars! Bars! Bars!
Outside magazine has published a fascinating deep dive that answers a question you perhaps didnât realize you had: Why are you surrounded, at all times, by snack bars? Theyâve got an entire aisle now, with offerings fine-tuned to every possible market niche:
Carefully laid out in front of you are upwards of 35 brands and 150 individual products: Clif, Epic, Kind, Larabar, Luna, Picky, ProBar, RX, Tanka, Skout, Soyjoy, Taos Mountain, Zingâperhaps dozens more. Although these bars are sometimes barely distinguishable from one another if you remove the wrappers and serve them on a platter, theyâre each carefully positioned to target a specific desire among consumers: breakfast, protein, vitality, paleo diet, womenâs nutrition, gluten-free diet, and meat (yes, meat), to name a few.
âIn terms of growth, bars are unparalleled. Itâs the fastest-growing segment in the grocery store,â Clif Barâs former senior vice president of brand marketing Keith Neumann told the magazine.
And make no mistake, these are at the grocery store rather than the check-out line at some specialty joint for mountain bikers. The PowerBar was a major innovation when it arrived in 1986, offering outdoor athletes a purpose-made snack. Apparently, athletes have increasingly switched over to âenergy gelsââbut consumers have adopted bars as meal replacements because theyâve got money, but no time. Yes, thatâs right, late capitalism strikes again:
Today, though, 75 percent of American bar consumers eat them as a snack and 60 percent replace a traditional breakfast with the more portable option. Moreover, 30 percent of Americans say itâs hard to prepare meals, given their busy schedules. The target consumer is also a marketing VPâs dream. Bar eaters have an above-average likelihood of being both young (under age 45) and wealthy (with a college degree and a household income of $150,000). Clifâs Neumann calls the trend of eating bars to replace meals âthe snackification of the way we eat.â
Advertisement
Read the full piece here; Iâm gonna go find a damn vegetable to eat.