Reflecting the ‘considerable shift away’ from gifting and towards snacking purchases, Hershey World Travel Retail is launching the DiPPED PreTzels range into Hershey’s travel retail portfolio.

The new range will be on display at the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition in Singapore, which opens tomorrow (9 May).

The new products are supported by data from travel retail research agency m1nd-set, which shows that ‘self’ and ‘share’ purchases comprised two-thirds of duty free purchases in Asia in 2022, while gifting dropped to just a third (almost half of what it was compered to before the pandemic).

Hershey’s new pretzels are ideally placed to capitalise on evolving consumer preferences. They come in three varieties: Hershey’s DiPPeD PreTzels Milk Chocolate, Hershey’s DiPPeD PreTzels Cookies ’n’ Creme and Reese’s DiPPeD PreTzels Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter – all available in 240g bags, making them good for snacking and sharing.

“Of course we expect gifting will rebound, and particularly when the Chinese re-enter the market properly,” said Hershey’s new World Travel Retail Director Rebecca Wong, who is confident of a strong year in the region.

“However, it’s imperative that we focus on the here and now, capitalise on current trends and maximise sales recovery while passenger numbers continue to improve, particularly after such a prolonged period of restrictions.”

“Herhsey has a wide variety of snacking brands that extends beyond traditional confectionery and into categories such as chips, popcorn, and pretzels.

“We are pleased to be able to leverage this portfolio to bring something that we believe is truly innovative and unique to travel retail, and provide our customers an opportunity to extend their confectionery range into an adjacent, high-growth snacking category.”

According to Wong, the company is seeing a “huge demand for alternative snacking options globally”, yet the duty free offering is “limited”, compared to the domestic markets.

Euromonitor data shows that the savoury snacks industry is worth US$218 billion globally, and has recently overtaken confectionery ($203 billion) having grown at +5.3% per year over the last five years (versus just +2.0% for confectionery), with pretzels growing ahead of the industry still at +5.8%.

Hershey’s DiPPED PreTzels in particular have performed “extremely well” in the US domestic market since their launch, growing +10.6% last year.

“We also know that confectionery is highly impulsive; one of the top category visit drivers is purely to browse, and almost two thirds of purchases are made on impulse, while finding ‘nothing of interest’ has been identified as the top purchase barrier,” said Wong, quoting figures from Pi-Insight’s 2022 Global Duty Free Confectionery Shopper Study.

“It is crucial, then, that we continue to captivate shoppers, and disrupt the habitual browsing that we know occurs in duty free by offering shoppers something new and exciting each time they travel.”

“That said, while shoppers are increasingly on the lookout for new and different, we know that they still seek products from well-known, global brands that they trust.

“Hershey’s DiPPED PreTzels combine the sweet taste of chocolate with the salty crunch of pretzels, creating a satisfying flavour contrast and point of difference versus traditional confectionery, while simultaneously leveraging the strength and scale of Hershey’s global brands.”

The full range will be available in travel retail across the Americas, the Middle East and in select markets in Europe.