WASHINGTON — SNAC International members now have access to a quarterly data dashboard giving them critical indicators about the health of the snack industry.

While the full version of the dashboard is only available to members of SNAC International via log in, a quarterly summary is available on SNAC International’s website.

The organization said its new dashboard has been in the works for more than 18 months.

“SNACtrac is a member-exclusive data platform that provides detailed trending data for key economic and snack food specific indicators,” said Tina Hacker, sales manager, specialty powders at Land O’Lakes, and past president of SNAC International’s Associate Executive Council (AEC).

“The goal with SNACtrac, which was developed by the AEC, was to help position members to adapt to evolving dynamics and be the go-to information source for you and your teams,” Hacker added during a webinar to introduce the dashboard.

The platform includes quarterly summaries of ingredient, labor and transportation costs, as well as quarterly retail sales data for all snack food and several core categories from Circana. Other industry indicators are sourced from Milling & Baking News, the US Department of Agriculture and others.

The SNACshot Survey is a confidential online survey of SNAC International members on a quarterly basis to determine company and industry outlook and top business challenges. This survey is conducted by Cypress Research. Hacker stressed to members the importance of completing those surveys quarterly.

“Your input is really important in this process,” Hacker said. ‘I can’t emphasize it enough. This survey will be sent to all members, and I ask everyone to participate because your input is really critical to the success and efficacy of our data.”

Marjorie Hellmer, president of Cypress Research, noted that the survey is relatively short to further encourage participation. During the webinar, Hellmer went through the latest dashboard, which covered data for Q3 2024 in comparison to Q2 2024. Company outlook is currently strong in the snack industry with 100% of snack manufacturers reporting a positive company outlook for the next six months, and 82% of ingredient, equipment and packaging suppliers reporting a positive company outlook. Both of these numbers were up from the SNACshot data for Q2 2024.

“We do see that 20-point difference in positive levels between supply chain and producers in the snacking industry that causes us to pause,” Hellmer said. “But overall, 82% positivity is fantastic. It’s just that bit of disconnect that’s happening between supply chain and snack food producers.”

Even though unit labor costs are up 2.1% compared to Q3 last year, Hellmer noted that it has been coming down quarter by quarter, while hourly wages are up 3.6% and unemployment is sitting at 4.1%.

While inflation is still present, the consumer price index for snack foods is down 2.5% in September 2024 compared to 2023. Under Transportation & Packaging, SNACtrac reports diesel fuel and other energy costs, as well as LMI Transportation Prices and Producer Price indexes for corrugated and solid fiber box manufacturing and plastics material and resins.

On the ingredient side, SNACtrac reports futures for several ingredients from Milling & Baking News, including corn, soybean and wheat future, cracker flour, soy flour, refined cane sugar, edible oils and dairy ingredients.

“Dairy is experiencing some trending up in prices from a year ago, while some categories are trending down, likely indicating that input costs are down a little bit,” Hellmer said. “My eye goes immediately to edible oils where we see a lot of downward pricing trends.”

As a part of the dashboard, SNAC International also offers members access to retail sales data from Circana for total snack food, salty snack food and core categories:   crackers, cookies, snack bars/granola bars/clusters, snack nuts/seeds/corn nuts, dried meat snacks, potato chips, over savory snacks, tortilla/tostada chips, cheese snacks, pretzels, corn snacks, ready-to-eat popcorn and pork rinds.

“Last year was the first time in a very long time that we saw volume and unit sales, either declining or stagnant,” said David Walsh, vice president, membership and communications, SNAC International. “Something very positive that we’re seeing now is that we’re seeing some signs of recovery.”

Total snack food sales are up 1.7% and 1.5% in dollar and unit sales, respectively, while savory snacks experienced a 2.5% increase in unit sales compared to Q3 a year ago. Dried meat snacks saw a 10.2% increase in unit sales and a 13.3% increase in dollar sales, and unit sales for potato chips increased by 7.1%.

“Potato chips is such a mature category, this is another great sign,” Walsh said. “Dried meat snacks as well, that category hits on all the trends we and Circana talk about all the time: portability, convenience, snacking frequency, meal replacement and the emphasis on protein.”