Category Close-up: What’s Up With Granola?

The Nosh team has recently tracked some notable new launches in the granola aisle, from elevated flavors and indulgent offerings to grain-free spins on the segment. Why so much hype surrounding the hippie snacking staple? Grab a spoon, and let’s dig in.

The shelf-stable granola and muesli segment generated just over $1 billion in sales, with dollar sales up 8.4% and unit sales up 4.5% year-over-year in natural and multi-outlet retail channels in the 52 weeks ended April 21, according to SPINS.

Crunchy Conversations: Social chatter about granola has increased nearly 24% over the past year, according to consumer data company Tastewise.

Top flavors are honey, chocolate, plain or unflavored, vanilla, peanut butter and cinnamon, per SPINS. The fast-growing flavors are chocolate nut, chocolate vanilla, toffee, strawberry and gingerbread.

And A Cereal Maker Has Entered the Chat: Earlier this month Three Wishes marked its first-ever brand extension with the launch of grain-free granola in Original, Maple Pecan and Chocolate Almond flavors. Three Wishes Granola is low in sugar and high in protein, and made with almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, monk fruit and maple syrup.

The product line emerged from efforts to develop a granola cluster as a cereal add-in, the company explained; the team soon landed on the idea to launch “a better option than oats coated in sugar,” said Margaret Wishingrad, co-founder and CEO of Three Wishes.

“Granola has garnered such a biased, healthy halo, when the majority of granola brands out there are actually just making dessert that’s pretending to be breakfast,” she said in a press release.

In January, Purely Elizabeth arguably did just that – unveiling Cookie Granola, an indulgent fusion of breakfast and snack in fresh-from-the-bakery flavors including Chocolate Chip Cookie, Double Chocolate Cookie and Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. It’s made with oats, oat flour and coconut flour and baked with coconut oil and coconut sugar.

“​​So much of what we’re seeing with consumers is in snacking within granola,” founder and CEO Elizabeth Stein told Nosh. “At the same time we’re seeing this push to a more fun balance in food – people taking a different approach to what they were eating and we’ve certainly seen that in the evolution of the brand.”

A Functional Foray: Direct-to-consumer wellness brand Kroma debuted Super Granola featuring ingredients to support energy, balance and metabolism. The mix includes crumbles of lightly sweetened granola with maca, cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, berries, coconut, cashews, hemp and pumpkin seeds.

This year also saw RIND Snacks adding granola to its dried fruit mixes following its acquisition of Vermont-based granola producer Small Batch Organics.

Other players are providing culinary twists on the category and incorporating nutrient-dense ingredients. The chef-crafted medleys produced by Struseli contain tiger nuts, hemp hearts and golden flax meal, while For Good Granola features buckwheat and is available in such flavors as Smoky Pineapple, Sweet Curry and Chocolate Chile. Michele’s Granola offers limited-edition varieties such as Salted Chocolate Tahini, Mystical Magical Matcha and Strawberry Shortcake alongside its core lineup of Lemon Pistachio, Cherry Chocolate and others.