Global snack food industry trends.

The snack food industry sector consists of establishments primarily engaged in the manufacturing of salted snacks such as potato chips, corn chips, tortilla chips, popped popcorn, pretzels and similar snacks (NAICS 311919) and salted and roasted nuts and seeds (NAICS 311911). The snack food

The world snack food market has continued to grow reaching an estimated $66 billion in 2003. The United States continues to be the largest market, accounting for about a third of the world's total and Japan and the United Kingdom, together, another quarter of the world's total.

The spread of Western eating habits to other parts of the world continues as lifestyles in those parts of the world become busier, and traditional family meal times become a thing of the past. As a result, the demand for snack foods continues to increase.

Global Market Prospects

U.S. snack food exports rebounded in 2003, increasing approximately 6.2%, following a 9% drop in 2002. Since 1997, U.S. exports of snack foods have hovered around $1.1 to $1.3 billion. The largest trading partners of the U.S., NAFTA (Canada and Mexico), accounted for over 53% of snack food exports. Exports to those two countries combined increased almost 14%. Our second largest trading region, Western Europe, which accounted for about 14% of U.S. exports, grew over 10%. (See tables for details.)

In 2003, the largest export category was chocolates and candy at 44%, followed by salted snacks with 34% and other snacks, (baked sweet goods, cookies and crackers, meat snacks and popcorn) with 22%.

While salted snacks experienced a 3.4% decline in exports, candy, chocolate and non-chocolate combined grew almost 12%, and other snacks, almost 12%. The "U.S. Exports of Snack Food Products in 2003" table provides a more disaggregated data.

International Market Reports The following discussions of selected country markets are based on U.S. Department of Agriculture FAS Attache Reports. For the complete report, using the reference code, check: http://www.fas.usda.gov/scriptsw/attac herep/default.asp

Indonesian Snack Food: Estimates of the value of Indonesia's snack market vary considerably, but it is generally considered to be in the range of $450 million. Of this total, traditional snacks account for about 50% of the total, while Western snacks comprise about 20%. The remaining 20% of the market is peanuts and other nut snacks.