USA | Americans rank Cheez-It and Pringles among their top favourite snack brands for summer road trips.
Kellanova surveyed 2,000 US adults who had recently gone on or planned to go on a road trip.
Gen Z tends to enjoy sour and spicy-flavoured snacks while travelling with friends. Millennials are more likely to eat tangy-flavoured snacks than any other generation, though their main focus when buying snacks is to keep the whole family happy.
Gen X and Boomers prefer salty and sweet flavours and keep it simple by hitting the road solo or with a travel buddy.
“With the summer road trip season kicking off, we wanted to find out what people love to munch on the most and discovered all generations crave Cheez-It and Pringles snacks, with Gen Z reaching for the boldest flavours,” said Julia Wilkinson, Senior Director of Insights at Kellanova.
“With nine out of ten roadtrippers eating more than one snack during their travels, we also learned people’s ages and where they live heavily influence their road trip snacking decisions.”
Generational Snacking Preferences
Different age groups bring their own flair to what they snack on and how they pack snacks for trips:
- Gen Z is more likely than any other generation to crave adventurous snack flavours, such as sour and bitter, alongside savoury and spicy options. Preferring to travel with a group of friends versus solo, they say shareability is essential.
- Millennials are more likely to gravitate towards tangy flavours, but their top choices are salty, sweet and cheesy flavours. With the majority travelling with kids, their top priority is bringing snacks for the whole family to enjoy. In fact, four out of 10 respondents say their kids are munching every mile.
- Gen X is up for anything: crackers, chips and protein snacks like beef jerky. Overall, they prefer sweet, salty and chocolatey flavours and, when not travelling with kids, they want to hit the road with a travel buddy.
- Boomers prefer salty, sweet, and chocolatey flavours, as well as chips, nuts, seeds, and salty snack mixes. Most travel solo or with a friend or partner, and they are more likely than other generations to buy snacks at stops along the way.
Tastes Across States
When it comes to regional snacking habits, the Summer Road Trip Snacking Survey results align with a map of retail sales data showing the US regions that love Kellanova snack brands most.
- The Most Spontaneous: The South stocks up along the journey and prefers salty, sweet and chocolatey snacks.
- More Cheese, Please: Northeasterners are twice as likely to eat something creamy-flavoured compared to Midwesterners. Don’t count them out, though: one out of three Midwesterners ranks cheesy-flavoured snacks in their “Top 3.”
- Almost Anything Goes: Those living in the Mountain West and Pacific Coast usually leave snack planning to others and are happy to eat whatever is available when they’re hungry, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their favourites, with salty, sweet and chocolatey flavours in their “Top 3.”
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