Cookie sales are on a general upward slope, with healthier cookies braced to experience the strongest growth through 2020 as the segment leverages its strong appeal among the category’s biggest demographic: young families. Standard cookies will remain the largest segment, as consumers embrace them as affordable indulgences for themselves and their families. The only segment set to experience sales declines, private label cookies, are suffering as consumers turn their cookie dollar to healthier and more-premium options.

This report focuses exclusively on cookies but builds on the analysis presented in Mintel’s Cookies and Crackers – US, March 2014, Mintel’s Cookie and Cookie Bars – US, March 2013, as well as the same title in April 2012 and 2010.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel has divided the packaged cookie segment into four categories:

• Standard: Typically popular mainstream brands, standard cookies are distinguished primarily by what they are not (ie do not claim premium ingredients, are not positioned as “healthy”).

• Premium: These products represent the more indulgent and artisan cookies and, as such, sell for higher retail prices than standard. Many imported brands are included in this segment as well. The premium segment includes international-style cookies such as Italian biscotti and French palmiers, and includes brands such as Pepperidge Farm Milanos and Mrs. Fields.

• Health-focused: Cookies positioned as “good for you,” either through added ingredients, the lack of certain ingredients, or through ingredients/processes generally perceived by consumers as more healthful (eg organic). Types of products included are organic, sugar-free, fat-free/low-fat, low-carb/no-carb, no-allergen, or nutritionally fortified. It also includes cookies formulated to address specific health conditions, like diabetes or celiac disease.

• Private Label: Cookies sold as private label could not be assigned to specific categories because of lack of detail in available sales data, so they are included in a separate category.

Excluded from this report are:

• Cookie bars

• Baking mixes

• Refrigerated or frozen cookie dough

• Brownies (mixes or prepared)

• Snack cakes

• Cookie-based candy bars (eg Twix)

• Energy/breakfast bars

• Fresh cookies sold through in-store bakeries and foodservice venues.

• Crackers, which had been included in the Cookies and Crackers – US, March 2014 report, will be featured in a March 2016 report.