RESEARCH ON WHAT MOTHERS THINK ABOUT SNACKS - PARENTHOOD

"Merenda 2.0": what do mothers think about snacks?

What is the ideal snack for our children? How to combine their desire for something greedy with our need to provide them with a healthy snack?

The site www.merendineitaliane.it involved over 100 mothers online in the research "Merenda 2.0" - you can find the infographic here - on the theme of the snack in general and packaged snacks in particular. The results show a rather jagged panorama and a concern relevant (1 mum out of 3) regarding the choice of the right snack.

The first indication that emerges is that most children have a snack: as many as 79.6% always do it, and if 63% of children have a snack both mid-morning and mid-afternoon, 1 in 3 sacrifices instead that of mid morning. What do children eat? For the morning snack, a fruit or a yogurt (41.5%), a slice of pizza or a sandwich (34%) or a packaged bakery product (30.5%), while 24% of mothers declare that they do not propose a usual snack but to always vary. For the afternoon snack this percentage (relative to the alternation of foods) rises to 40%, while fruit and yogurt remain in first place (36.4%), followed by ice cream (25.3%), packaged bakery products ( 23.2%) and homemade desserts (17%).

There are many mothers (50%) who overestimate the caloric weight of snacks and would like the packaged products to be even "lighter". In particular, three fairly equivalent judgment profiles emerged: the extremely positive ones, the unfavorable ones and the area of the so-called "pragmatism" ("maybe snacks are not ideal, but they are practical and safe and solve the snack problem ").

The research was also an opportunity to listen to the wishes of mothers regarding the snacks of the future.Above all, they would like them to be even lighter in their fat and sugar content (63.3%), they would like companies to continue investing in process innovation (3 out of 10) and to increase information on product characteristics (3 out of 10).