Dive Brief:
- Dave’s Killer Bread is bringing its brand into the snack bar category.
- Flowers Foods’ flagship organic bread brand will have bars in three flavors: Cocoa Brownie Blitz, Trail Mix Crumble and Oat-rageous Honey Almond.
- The new launch underscores Flowers Foods’ efforts to tap into the better-for-you attributes of Dave’s Killer Bread, while expanding the brand’s reach into fast-growing categories such as bars.
Dive Insight:
Dave’s Killer Bread made a name for itself as a brand co-founded by an ex-convict. But the brand has increasingly focused less on its past and more on where its owner Flowers Foods is taking it. In addition to its core product, Dave’s Killer Bread has a presence in breakfast breads, English muffins, bagels and buns.
The nationwide launch of its bars, which follows a soft test last year, is a bold step that will take it into a new aisle of the grocery store and beyond the product for which it traditionally has been known. Shoppers could pick up a box of the new bars and then decide to grab one of the other nearly two dozen varieties of whole grain organic bakery products under the Dave’s Killer Bread’s banner.
“To say our BreadHeads want more innovation from DKB is an understatement, and we heard them loud and clear! It’s no secret that consumers want healthy snacks that also taste killer,” Jillian Cohn, associate brand manager at Dave’s Killer Bread, said in a statement. She added that the brand was able to “bring our organic whole grain nutrition know-how and sky-high flavor standards to the snack category.”
In making that transition, the new Dave’s Killer Bread bars contain the same product attributes that made the prior extensions a success and continue to resonate with consumers today: organic and Non-GMO Project certifications, and ingredient lists with no high fructose corn syrup, bleached flour or artificial components — including preservatives, colors and flavors.
When Flowers bought Dave’s Killer Bread in 2015, it paid $275 million for a business that had expected 2016 sales of about $160 million to $170 million. Baking Business reported the brand had annual sales of about $875 million in 2021.
The snack bar market size was valued at $22.81 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $38.09 billion by 2028, a compound annual growth rate of 6.62%, according to data from Verified Market Research. Increasingly, hungry consumers are looking for items that not only are convenient but better for you, a trend that gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its growth has caught the attention of large food makers. Mars reportedly spent more than $5 billion in 2020 for Kind, which prioritizes the use of plant-based, nutrient-dense ingredients in its foods. And last year, Mondelēz International snapped up Clif Bar for at least $2.9 billion, giving it ownership of the popular maker of nutritious and organic food snacks.
Dave’s Killer Bread will be going head-to-head with these and countless other bar offerings from large and small food manufacturers alike. Even if it captures a small slice of the multi-billion market, it could amount to a big win for Flowers and its popular organic brand.
