Pecans: A Better-For-You Snack

Pecans are getting more attention with solid demand.

Pecans are getting the attention of more consumers, whether in their natural state or flavored, particularly given their potential as a better-for-you snack or easy meal substitute.

Karim Wahhab, produce division manager, Draeger’s Markets, South San Francisco, CA, says demand for nuts continues to be strong. Although they’re more closely associated with the southern U.S., pecans are also popular in the Bay Area.

“There’s a lot of demand for pecans right now. We’re doing a lot of glazed pecans. A lot of people who were more familiar with the walnuts have started using pecans because they are a little sweeter,” says Wahhab.

Tiernan Paine, owner of Tree-Ripe Fruit Co., Milwaukee, WI, has a particular take on pecans, in part because of his unique approach to selling produce to consumers. Tree-Ripe uses multiple trucks to visit scheduled locations and sell to consumers directly from the vehicles.

“We’ll show up with a semi loaded up with peaches, pecans, and pistachios, all of our products, and we’ll sell for about an hour and a half, tear down, move to the next town and do that over and over again.”

DEMAND IS BRANCHING OUT

The pecan part of the menu has been getting more attention, Paine observes. “We’ve done pecans for quite some time, probably 25 years or so. What we’ve seen over the last five, six years is a ton of growth in pecans. It used to be something that was geared once toward an older demographic. In comparison to other nuts, it’s been our top seller.”

This year, the company added flavored pecans from Genuine GA. He said online sales, which Tree-Ripe does in addition to the truck-based operation, have slowed somewhat, but flavored pecans have done well in face-to-face retail.

“I was shocked at the enthusiasm for the flavored varieties at our physical locations,” he says. “We didn’t really promote them. We sampled them a little bit. We sold through our supply. It’s something we are definitely going to keep going with and expand that program.”

Tree-Ripe Fruit Co. offers three flavors — cinnamon, Southern praline and maple. “We found cinnamon to be the No. 1 flavor,” says Paine.

Daniel Zedan, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Pecan Grove Farms, Cedar Creek, TX, says, compared to other nuts, pecans are doing fairly well, but the past three years haven’t been the easiest in the overall sector. Still, he said, pricing over the past year in general has been pretty stable, but below production cost for the most part.

However, in the summer, a degree of shortage helped elevate pricing. “We’re seeing that slowly turn around here,” he says. “Whether that’s a long-term turnaround or simply a reaction because the inventories have finally gotten so short that we have to replenish them.”

The fall will tell if the trend has traction. Some buyers have come back into the market to buy “some pretty significant quantities because their consumption is up domestically, or they didn’t purchase enough up front. That has been a plus,” says Zedan.

Pecan Grove Farms typically sells to major U.S. retailers on a business-to-business basis.

Will McGehee, a partner in Genuine GA, in Fort Valley, GA, says his company is looking to give the pecan business a boost by making products that are more consumer-friendly.

McGehee says pecans haven’t gotten a fair hearing in much of the country because other nut producers, those selling, for example, pistachios and almonds, have been backed by more expansive promotional campaigns. To put pecans on a growth trajectory, Genuine GA is going straight to retail as a snacking product. The idea is not only to sell more pecans as a company, but to raise the profile of the nut and generate more consumer attention.

SNACK ATTACK

“The bright spot is Pecan Nation, our retail snacking brand,” says McGehee. “We are actually growing, +27.8% in the latest data pull,” he says, citing Circana’s Total MULO plus Convenience data, ending July 14. “We made the decision six years ago to pivot from bulk pecans into the snack nut category, and we couldn’t be happier.”

Pecan Nation offers five core flavors: cinnamon, honey-roasted, maple, roasted and salted and natural. “I would say our cinnamon is the most popular at the moment, but maple is catching up,” says McGehee. “Our newest introduction, honey-roasted, is showing early signs of being the favorite.”

“We are exploring some savory flavor options, but again, sweet/more indulgent flavor varieties tend to do the best,” he says. “We also have a pumpkin spice flavor for the holidays and a milk chocolate for Valentine’s Day/Easter.”

Flavor and creating products that have characteristics appealing to specific consumer groups is a way to build pecan sales. Tess Mercado, founder and principal of Nutridge Farms, Chino, CA, points to her date sugar pecan product as an example. The product, with the simplest slate of ingredients, is gluten-free, adding only date and cane sugar.

“There is nothing in the market like it, and people are willing to pay the price,” she points out, and, Mercado adds, “People like the date sugar because it has a low glycemic index value.”

Mercado also sees the opportunity holidays provide, and so developed pumpkin spice date pecans for the fall. She also makes the point that, both for holidays and every day, pecan merchandising and promotion should include serving recommendations. Although snacking may be pecans’ most familiar use outside of pies, Mercado says stores should encourage consumers to use pecans in salads.

The snack approach is another way the health benefits of pecans can get in front of consumers in the produce department, particularly younger consumers who more closely associate food and health than older shoppers.

Zedan says that snacking is one way for pecan producers to catch the eye of younger consumers. “They seem to be more health conscious if the item can be made more ready to eat, if they can grab it on the run,” he says.

Genuine GA still offers bulk pecans in-shell, cracked and natural halves/pieces, but the company’s primary business and focus is on the branded operation in snack sizes, 1 ounce, 2.25 ounces and 4 ounces.

In addition to the snack-size packages, the 4-ounce is available in a resealable bag, as is a larger 8-ounce size. Then Genuine GA also offers a 16-ounce pillow bag primarily through e-commerce operations.

McGehee says part of taking a branded product to retail is matching size to channel. “We are focused on the optimal pack size per channel,” he says. “We just launched a 2.25-ounce bag primarily for the convenience channel. With snacking, smaller is better. Plus, it allows us to hit lower retails to encourage trial.”

• • •

American Pecan Promotion Board Develops Marketing Campaign

Genuine GA isn’t alone in seeing snacking as important to the future of pecans. In June, the American Pecan Promotion Board (APPB), Fort Worth, TX, announced that, as part of its mission to advance the way consumers in the United States purchase, it had developed the Surprisingly Snackable Pecans marketing campaign.

At the campaign’s launch, the organization noted U.S. consumers still view pecans in a traditional way, typically as a holiday baking nut. APPB, with its snacking-oriented campaign, is determined to focus on pecans as a delicious and nutritious snack option.

APPB asserts that 90% of U.S. adults snack up to three times per day and 81% of nuts get consumed as a snack. As such, the opportunity to position pecans as the go-to snack that delivers both flavor and function is evident.

“As snacking grows more functional, people still want to have tasty choices. With their buttery taste, natural sweetness and good-for-you nutrients, pecans are a perfect snack option,” according to Serena Schaffner, APPB managing director of global marketing.

To get the campaign going, APPB partnered with branding agency Signal Theory and creative studio SixTwentySix to create a campaign targeting audiences across generations. The Surprisingly Snackable Pecans campaign launched with spots available on CTV and streaming platforms, as well as strategies for e-commerce, in-store activations, influencer marketing, social media promotion, digital initiatives and out-of-home billboards.