Smart stuff

Prepared Foods, August, 2004

PepsiCo (Purchase, N.Y.) continues to extend its low-carb offerings, this time with products under the Quaker brand. New are Quaker Q-Smart snack bars and rice snacks. The rice snacks are similar to rice cakes, in a small, bite-size form. The bars are like other bars on the market, in that they come in multipacks of individually wrapped bars.

The bars have only 3g of "impact" carbs and are trans-fat free, the company says. Currently, two flavors are available: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Almond. It is unclear why PepsiCo did not choose to take its Edge sub-brand (which appears on Frito-Lay snacks and Pepsi-Cola) to the Quaker product, as it would reinforce a family of products. However, what the company has done is to choose a brand name that can be a low-carb brand today and perhaps a brand that has a different health and wellness focus in the future, if need be.

Ranking Nutritional Components

Nutritional Traits Considered Important   % of Americans
When Purchasing Foods                        Agreeing
Total calories                                 40%
Total fat                                      37%
Calories from fat                              32%
Saturated fat                                  32%
Cholesterol                                    31%
Total carbohydrates                            30%
Sodium                                         29%
Protein                                        19%

Source: InsightExpress; n=500

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