Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Snack Time!

posted by lizzie    « 4 Comments »    tied to Uncategorized   

Yesterday I got an e-mail from one of my professors saying that a friend of his who has a consulting business needed some people for a focus group in the afternoon. It sounded like a great way to get a few extra dollars for Christmas, so I signed up.

The focus of the group was salty/savory snacks for time-starved adults, Hispanics (which is a severely “underserved” by the snack food industry), and mothers with kids under 12 years old. We each wrote down a snack idea for one of the groups, passed our papers around to different people who added to them or improved upon them, and pitched our ideas to the rest of the group. Then we broke into three groups and used the ideas we had come up with to create a snack idea (complete with cost, packaging options, distribution channel, etc.) for one of the focus populations.

Before we started pitching our ideas, the consultant told some stories about people and their snack food. One lady said she and her best friend used to skip their math class during their junior year of high school to go home and eat a whole bag of potato chips–a forbidden food in their houses. Another said she and her sister would make houses of saltine crackers in the shag carpet at their house, then let their dogs destroy them and have it all cleaned up by the time their mom got home.
I’m trying to think of my favorite snack-time memories. I loved coming home from school and eating ramen or crackers with cheese before going on my paper route. And eating cereal around the kitchen table late at night with my siblings will be a memory I cherish for years to come, I’m sure. These days I look forward to the times when we have a few minutes after Simon goes to sleep to pop some popcorn on our stove and sit down and relax for a little while before we head to bed ourselves.

Comments

  1. Stephanie J. Robertson says:
    December 18, 2007 at 9:34 pm

    I know snacking late at night is supposed to be the worst time to snack- but that is a favorite of mine as well: we get ambrose to sleep and then we curl up on the couch with a snack of some sort and watch a movie or some TV and just relax… i love it.

  2. Danielle says:
    December 19, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    So what were the snack ideas that you guys came up with?

  3. lizzie says:
    December 19, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    My idea (for time-starved adults) was flavored crackers with a complementing flavored dip in the box. Like basil crackers with tomato dip or spinach crackers with goat cheese dip.

    Other ideas were “international lunchables” (also for time-starved adults), vitamin enhanced popcorn (because vita-water is so popular), crackers in puzzle or pasta shapes with dips or spreads (for kids), EDA-Mommy (hahaha)–soy nuts covered in yogurt or other flavorings.

    Nothing memorable for the Hispanic crowd. Maybe it was a popcorn chicken with Mexican flavorings–guac, taco, etc. We didn’t think they would sell very well, though. Apparently Hispanics are just going to have to figure out their own snack foods.

  4. becca says:
    December 20, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Yummm… spinach dip. Those sure were good times sitting around the table late at night. Someone keeping watch to let us know if Mom was up and about and if we needed to hide our goods. Ü Not like she didn’t know anyway. Definitely good memories.

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