Sprouting breakfast innovation; Meal-ified snacks; Pudding goes frozen

Meal-ified snacks
Farmer’s Pantry released its Meal Snack line, a snack mix that combines real meat with vegetables. The mixes’ packaging separates the two components until consumers open them, ensuring that the vegetables (and croutons included in some varieties) stay crunchy. The ingredients, which come from family farms across America, are slow-roasted to lock in flavor and nutrients.

Foods typically eaten as meals have increasingly become smaller and more portable as consumers up their snacking occasions, and Farmer’s Pantry sought to do the opposite: turn a traditional snack like trail mix into something that could be eaten as a satisfying meal, says Jeff Moskowitz senior vice-president of sales.

“[C]onsumers are looking for more substantial snacks to satisfy their hunger … they are looking for authentic, wholesome snacks, using the kind of identifiable ingredients you’d find in a farmer’s pantry,” says Farmer’s Pantry CEO Josh Chaitovsky.“As we looked at the market, it was clear that no one was adequately addressing these trends. … So we started from scratch.”

The Meal Snacks are available in three flavors: Garden Harvest Chicken, Flame Grilled Chicken, and Herb Roasted Turkey. They can be found nationwide for a suggested retail price of $5.99.

Sprouting breakfast innovation
Food for Life introduced Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Waffles and Ezekiel 4:9 Flax English Muffins, filling, high-fiber breakfast options made without flour. The company’s sprouting process involves adding water to live grains that contain no flour, which it says increases the development of vitamins and allows protein and carbohydrates to assimilate into the body more easily.

The diabetic-friendly waffles, which are available in four flavors—Original, Golden Flax, Blueberry, and Apple Nut—provide 9–10 grams of protein and 15% of the recommended daily iron intake per serving. They can be found in the cooler aisle of natural food stores and premium supermarkets for $6.99.

Vegan Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Flax English Muffins, meanwhile, are rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. “The benefits of flax seeds are enormous,” says Gary Torres, a Food for Life company principal. “We wanted to find a way to incorporate this powerful seed into healthy breakfast meals everywhere.” The cholesterol-free English muffins are available around the United States for $4.99.

Pudding goes frozen
Little Spoon Frozen Pudding’s namesake desserts are two treats in one. Frozen, they resemble rich and creamy ice cream, and when they melt, they turn into pudding, making the treats ideal for parties.

“Frozen pudding started as a happy accident, but after we tasted our first batch from the freezer, we knew we were on to something. After significant R&D to perfect the process, we created something we knew the world would love: an ice cream–like product that doesn’t turn into a soupy mess when it thaws,” says cofounder Jason Kessler.

The pudding is available in five flavors: Nana Banana, Campfire Chocolate, Caramel Latte, gluten-free Brown Sugar Vanilla, and a vegan and gluten-free Coconut Cream Pie. The 3.8-ounce cups are sold for $4.50–$5 from a specially designed cart in California, Michigan, and Colorado as well as online at littlespoonpudding.com.