Last updated on January 9th, 2020
Calbee North America launched its new Harvest Snaps salad toppers at Fresh Summit. Paul Laubscher, director of marketing, said Calbee International started in 1949 in Japan, but has been in the U.S. since the 1970s. It is one of the largest snack food companies in Asia.
“Now we are branching out to come to the U.S. market with products that started here,” Laubscher said. “A good example of that would be our Harvest Snaps salad toppers. Harvest Snaps as a brand has been in the produce department for many years, and we have near perfect distribution throughout the country in the produce department. And we are in the produce department because of what the product is—we have an honestly veggie product.”
The first ingredient is always vegetable, and the product is baked, not fried, with no artificial colors or flavors. Harvest Snaps feature green peas, red lentils and black beans. Its snack crisps are sold in the produce department and in major club stores like Costco.
“This brand new item is a salad topper, and with the plant-based trend and the plant-based protein trend, who wants to put bread on a salad anymore, which is what a crouton is—it’s dehydrated bread,” he said. “The salad toppers still meet our promise. The first ingredient is vegetable, and in this case green peas.”
The salad toppers are extra crunchy and hold up well even when covered in salad dressing.
“When we were doing our photo shoots for this product, we had the salad toppers dressed for over an hour and we decided to eat them. They were still crisp and crunchy and delicious after being dressed for an hour,” Laubscher said.
The salad toppers are available in three flavors: Italian herb, garlic butter and chipotle.
He said the new product already had been picked up that day by a major national account, along with customers in the Southeast and the West Coast.
“We’re off to the races,” he said.
West Coast-based Calbee North America has three plants in the U.S.—Oregon, California and Mississippi.
Harvest Snaps snack crisps are available in nine different flavors and may be found in grocery stores across the country.
“Consumers know the brand and that it’s honestly vegetable-based products, so they are really excited about it. But I think that we are seeing that in the quick takeaway in getting distribution very quickly,” Laubscher said of the new salad toppers.
