By 2019, current estimates put the Hispanic population at 62.4 million, comprising 18.8% of the total population. Moreover, Hispanic purchasing power is projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2018. This is an important market for almost any industry, and snacking is no exception. When buying snacks, Hispanics don’t limit their purchases to just a few that they like, but rather look for variety, and take into consideration what their families like. As Hispanics become more acculturated, they are more sophisticated snack consumers who are more open to trying new products as well as brands.

This is encouraging news for snack manufacturers. As the Hispanic market as a whole is becoming more bicultural, there are new opportunities. However, there also challenges. Snack manufacturers need to be able to stand out from the immense number of options – both sweet and salty – that Hispanics have to choose from.

Hispanic Consumers’ Snacking Preferences – US, March 2015 offers an overview of the Hispanic snacking market. Categories covered in this report include both sweet and salty snacks. In the salty snack categories the report includes analyses for potato chips, corn, tortilla, or cheese chips/snacks, snack/graham crackers, popcorn, nuts, savory snacks, dips, pretzels, as well as beef snacks and beef jerky. In the sweet snacks categories the report includes analyses for ice cream, ready-to-eat cookies, chocolates and candy, yogurt and smoothies, frozen novelty treats, and ready-to-eat cakes.

This report compares findings by key demographics including; age, gender, language spoken at home, level of acculturation, and region (where applicable).

Readers may find more information about snacks in the following reports produced by Mintel:

• Snacking Preferences of Black Consumers – US, November 2014

• Hispanic Consumers and Dining Out – US, January 2015

• Hispanic Consumers and Non-Alcoholic Beverages – US, November 2014

• Hispanic Consumers and Alcoholic Beverages – US, December 2015

• Chips, Popcorn, Nuts, and Dips – US, January 2014

• The Snacking Occasion – US, February 2014

• Cookies and Crackers – US, March 2014

• Snack and Nutrition Bars – US, March 2014

• Chocolate Confectionery – US, April 2014

• Frozen Snacks – US, April 2014

• Prepared Cakes and Pies – US, June 2014

• Ice Cream and Frozen Novelties – US, July 2014

• Yogurt and Yogurt Drinks – US, August 2014

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive consumer research through Lightspeed GMI in partnership with Offerwise to explore Hispanic consumers’ perceptions of and attitudes toward snacking. Mintel was responsible for the survey design, data analysis, and reporting. Fieldwork was conducted in November 2014 among a sample of 1,000 Hispanic adults aged 18+ with access to the internet.

For this study, Mintel applies post-stratification weights to survey respondents so that results are proportionally balanced to the entire US Hispanic adult population. Please note that our surveys are conducted online in the participant’s language of choice (ie English or Spanish). Hispanics who are not online are not included in our survey results.

Mintel has also analyzed data from Experian Marketing Services, using the Simmons NHCS (National Hispanic Consumer Study).

The Experian Marketing Services, Simmons NHCS was carried out during August 2013-September 2014, and the results are based on the sample of 24,053 adults aged 18+, including 8,063 Hispanics, with results weighted to represent the US adult population/US adult Hispanic population.

Note: When Experian Marketing Services, Simmons NHCS results are presented by language spoken at home, the sum of the subsegments may not add to the total, due to the fact that some respondents answered “some other language.”

While race and Hispanic origin are separate demographic characteristics, Mintel often compares them to each other. Please note that the responses for race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, or other race) will overlap those that also are Hispanic, because Hispanics can be of any race.

Generations are discussed within this report, and they are defined as:

* also known as Generation Y or Echo Boomers

In this report Mintel includes analyses of the consumer data by level of acculturation. As defined by Merriam-Webster, acculturation is the “cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture.” In other words, it is the process whereby Latinos learn about, and embrace, the mainstream culture while also maintaining their culture of origin. The acculturation algorithm developed by Mintel is based on 1) the language Hispanics speak at home and 2) the culture Hispanics consider that is most dominant in their lives – the American or the Hispanic culture. Results of the algorithm indicate that the bicultural segment is the largest segment, followed by the unacculturated segment. The smallest of all three is the acculturated segment. The following outlines some demographic information that helps put the acculturation groups into context:

• Unacculturated Hispanics (~30%) skew female and tend to have a lower household income. While they are distributed across all ages, they are more likely to be in the 25-34 age range. The majority are foreign-born. They tend to live in urban settings.

• Bicultural Hispanics (~50%) skew male and tend to be younger. Bicultural Hispanics are distributed across all ages. They skew slightly US-born. They live primarily in urban settings. This is the segment that is projected to grow the most as the Hispanic demographic as a whole becomes more bicultural.

• Acculturated Hispanics (~20%) tend to be young; over-indexing among Hispanics aged 18-24. They tend to live in households with higher household incomes, and are almost equally likely to be male or female. The majority are US-born. They are more likely than any of the other groups to live in the suburbs.

For further information about acculturation, please refer to the Acculturation section of this report.