'Cakes' improve pop-ularity, puff-ormance: rice and popcorn cakes erupt with new flavors - sales soar 8,000%

Discount Store News, Nov 6, 1995 by Laurie Freeman

Sales of rice cakes and popcorn cakes are jumping like popcorn in the pan, riding consumers' desire for healthy snacks that fit into to a daily 2,000-calorie diet,

According to Information Re sources Inc., Chicago, rice and pop corn cakes are no longer relegated the status of yucky diet foods. Super market sales of rice and popcorn cakes climbed 17.5% to $260.3 million for the 52 weeks ending June 19, 1995. And growth in the non-supermarket channels has been even greater. Rice and popcorn cakes had the largest percentage sales growth at mass merchandisers of any other food product category. Rice and popcorn cake's' sales exploded by more than 8,000% to $3.5 million in 1995. Apparently, health-conscious consumers have anointed the new generation of flavored popcorn cakes and rice cakes as worthy of between-meal snacking.

Driving category growth is Quaker Oats Co., with its Quaker brand cakes, which account for more than 76% of category sales. Most of the Yest of the category is splintered between regional and private label brands.

What's happened is that we made a tremendous breakthrough in flavor, and we have been able to turn rice cakes from a diet food that we barely tolerated into a great-tasting food," said Polly Kawalek, president, Quaker Snacks. "Flavors made all the difference in the world."

Quaker distributes 12 flavors of popcorn cakes, in both large and mini sizes, with smaller sizes being perfect for toddlers. The newest flavors this fall are blueberry, strawberry and Monterey Jack cheese. Those three flavors join such popular flavors as caramel, butter, white cheddar, apple cinnamon, cinnamon crunch, honey nut and banana crunch. Quaker even makes three varieties of plain popcorn cakes.

"What's driving sales of products like SnackWell's, Gatorade and [popcorn] cakes is effective marketing of 'better for you' products," noted Gary Stibel, principal, The New England Consulting Group, Westport, Conn. "In today's world of healthy foods, truly healthy health foods are the exception, not the rule."

Quaker Oats doesn't make any health claims for its rice and popcorn cakes, but points out that the cakes are a low-fat alternative to full-calorie cookies and snack cakes.

Rice and popcorn cakes as a category have also achieved enough sales momentum and consumer popularity that Kawalek believes the category is ripe for expansion into drugstores and mass merchandise snack food shelves. Women, she said, are the major consumers of popcorn cakes, and drugstores, with their orientation toward women, are a perfect venue.

Rice cakes are also an attractive promotional item for discount chains like Target, Caldor and Wal-Mart, which are steadily increasing the number of snack food items stocked. "Rice cakes are a perfect fit in stores where women are shopping, and women are shopping for products for themselves," said Kawalek.

"It's a category that fits right into today's trend of healthy eating and one that makes sense for retailers to carry," she added.