Popping up everywhere

Despite tough market conditions popcorn remains one of the fastest growing impulse categories. The sector has seen an increase of 8% over the last year, with an accelerated growth of more than 12 per cent in the last 12 weeks.

Toffee and sweet popcorn flavours continue to account for the majority share of sales. However savoury flavours now make up 30% of the market, and are one of the fastest growing variants with a growth of more than 15.5%, which is adding more than £2.3m to the market.

Butterkist has taken advantage of this trend by recently launching three new savoury flavours, sour cream & chive, sea salt & balsamic vinegar and barbecue flavours.

Popcorn has always been a popular snack in the US market, and this trend is now very apparent in the UK. Reasons for its popularity include its relatively low calorie content compared to other snack and confectionery items and its ease of eating on the go.

Corn Again is making it easier for its customers to consume its most popular flavours on the go by recently packaging its sweet cinnamon variety in a 40g snack sized bag. The flavour joins salty sweet and chilli & lime.

I think we can expect to see many more popcorn products being stocked in supermarket aisles.