Salty or sweet? Most people buy both!

More consumers buy only sweet snacks, while fewer consumers buy only savoury snacks

The proportion of consumers who consume both savoury and sweet snacks has remained the same, year-on-year – but the balance has shifted for those who exclusively buy one or the other.

The evidence can be seen if we look at penetration, with sweet snacks increasing their buyer base 1.4% year-on-year to reach 91.4% of the Thai population. In contrast, the footprint of savoury snacks has shrunk by 2.1%, and the category now reaches 91% of the population.Similarly, while frequency is lower across the category, savoury snacks have lost 4.4 million trips in total compared with 2.8 million for sweet. Volume sales have followed the same pattern, with declines of 4.8% and 1.3% respectively.Rather than indicating a shift in consumer preference towards a ‘sweeter tooth’, this change is an outcome of Thai consumers becoming more selective in what they include in their grocery baskets, in an effort to control their spending. Sweet snacks have seen less significant price increases than savoury snacks, enabling them to better maintain their penetration.