Healthier Daily Snacking Alternatives

Demand for clean-label products has significantly increased as consumers have become more conscious of health and nutrition and seek transparency in their products. The head of Marketing at Tom & Luke, Rachel Morrison, revealed that the pandemic accelerated the consumer focus on better-for-you products that could be viewed as an opportunity to indulge or treat oneself.

hese trends are completed aligned with the Tom & Luke snack range, which are all based on real food with clean ingredients while also being a satisfying sweet treat, without the guilt,” said Morrison.

Tom & Luke’s snacks range is crafted from natural ingredients such as nuts, seeds and fruits, with no added sugar, sweeteners or sugar alcohols in the brand’s Snackaballs™ and no refined sugar in any of the brand’s chocolate coatings. Each product is glutenfree and non-GMO and Tom & Luke includes a range of certified vegan products.

As a Toitū-certified net carbon zero company, Tom & Luke’s packaging reflects its clean label ethos through its 100 percent recyclability through the soft plastics recycling scheme. However, the company is also part of Toitū’s carbon reduction programme, with Tom & Luke’s progressing towards becoming a certified B Corp company.

Morrison’s extensive corporate experience at the likes of Lion, Coca-Cola United Kingdom and Pernod Ricard, alongside her work with smaller, entrepreneurial New Zealand businesses such as Essano Limited and Tom & Luke, has given her the knowledge and skills to lead the development of Tom & Luke’s clean ingredient innovation pipeline, brand strategy and marketing execution.

“I learned a lot from those companies, brands and colleagues. Since having a family, I’ve been doing more consultingtype work and have worked for smaller, entrepreneurial New Zealand businesses, which has also been amazing,” said Morrison.

Morrison shared that she’s had opportunities to create brands, develop and execute strategy and drive innovation which has taught her to be agile and creative, which the head of marketing enjoys.

However, Morrison shared that the pandemic posed challenges for the Tom & Luke brand as consumer snacking behaviour and the ability to unlock export opportunities drastically changed. Having overcome these challenges, the brand has shown continued growth in local markets. Morrison said the brand could deliver exciting growth opportunities in export markets, entering an exciting growth phase for the company.

Morrison shared that Tom & Luke’s had a custom-made manufacturing capability, which has resulted in the company operating at a unique scale concerning its Snackaball™ products.

Tom & Luke has also launched an exciting new product named ChocaDate Minis. The new snack is crafted with tiny pieces of date smothered in Tom & Luke’s signature refined sugar-free chocolate.

“We have two flavours, dark choc and white choc blueberry. I keep trying both to work out my favourite.”

When discussing her favourite snack from the Tom & Luke range, Morrison shared that she was a fan of the brand's softly textured reduced sugar range as an everyday option as it contains 50 percent less sugar than the rest of the Snackaball™ range.

“They are delicious and great in lunchboxes too. However, it’s also super hard to go past our choc coated Snackaballs…they are so good.” n