SkinnyPop Popcorn & Pirate Booty Join the IGA Red Oval Family!

IGA welcomes two new brand partners to the Red Oval Family: SkinnyPop Popcorn and Pirate's Booty. These brands join a wide range of manufacturers and service providers to aid IGA independent retailers and help the IGA brand grow and thrive.

"We're excited that SkinnyPop Popcorn and Pirate's Booty are joining the IGA Red Oval Family," says IGA Senior Director of Red Oval Partnerships Heidi Huff. "As a maker of delicious and healthy snacks for the whole family, these brands are shopper favorites (and SkinnyPop microwave popcorn is my personal favorite!)." Huff spoke with Amplify Snack Brands' Central Region Business Manager Christopher Herbert to learn more about these two popular brands, how they're helping independent retailers win the snacking category, and how they're keeping the product moving during COVID-19.

SkinnyPop Popcorn

Heidi Huff: Tell us about the history of the SkinnyPop Popcorn brand.

Christopher Herbert: SkinnyPop Popcorn was founded in 2010 with a simple premise: people deserve snacks that taste delicious AND are good for them. The result was the best tasting popcorn with the fewest, cleanest, and simplest ingredients possible: just popcorn kernels, sunflower oil, and salt.

Since then, we haven’t looked back. In addition to our Ready-To-Eat Popcorn, we offer Popcorn Cakes, Microwave Popcorn, and most recently, Popcorn Chips.

HH: What makes your products different from your competitors?

CH: The SkinnyPop difference is in our ingredients. All our products are created with the motto ‘snacking without compromise,’ which is why our delicious snacks contain no artificial ingredients or flavors, are non-GMO, and always gluten-free.

HH: How is SkinnyPop Popcorn focusing on product innovations?

CH: By keeping popcorn at the core of everything we do, we’ve been able to highlight its versatility as an ingredient to bring healthier, Better-For-You (BFY) options to adjacent snacking categories such as Mini Cakes and most recently, Chips.

In addition to this, as a naturally low-calorie ingredient, popcorn benefits from a “health halo” that has allowed us to experiment with added functional benefits such as protein and collagen. As we look to the future, we’ll continue pushing the boundaries of BFY to meet the growing consumer need for clean, healthy, and delicious snacks.

Pirate's Booty

HH: Tell us about Pirate's Booty.

CH: At Pirate Brands™, we have been creating tasty treasures since 1987 with the belief you shouldn’t have to snackrifice taste for goodness.

Over the years, we’ve created products for the whole family that are wholesome and delicious. In 2018 Pirate’s Brands became part of the Amplify Snacks & Hershey Company family. Our snacks are always gluten free, never fried, and are seriously tasty. We keep our ingredients real and straightforward, so you can be sure the only thing we add is a taste of swashbucklin’ fun and adventure.

HH: How is your company focusing on product innovations?

CH: In addition to our real Aged White Cheddar Puffs and new Veggie & Fruit Sticks, we are also now launching an even cheesier Pirate’s Booty Cheddar Blast that gives kids more of that delicious cheesy goodness, but is still made with real cheese and baked, never fried, just like our original. We really want to empower families to not feel like they are compromising when they are choosing snacks and overcome the stigma that healthy means boring.

About the Company and the Snacking Category

HH: What makes your products different from your competitors'?

CH: One of the biggest things we hear from parents is that they are trying to find ways of getting positive nutrition and real food ingredients into their kids' diets while still giving them snacks they love and ask for. As a brand that prides itself on providing healthier, filling snack alternatives, our real Aged White Cheddar Puffs and new Veggie & Fruit Sticks embody this commitment. We’re glad kids love them as much as we do.

HH: Why is the independent sector important for your business?

Independent retailers are the neighborhood destinations for shoppers’ needs. Ensuring that we partner with these retailers is paramount to extending our brand’s reach and to delivering on our promise of bringing consumers simple and delicious popcorn wherever they may be."

HH: What is your company doing to help retailers and shoppers during the COVID-19 pandemic?

CH: As a leader in Better-for-You Snacks, we are leveraging both analytics and consumer research to help better inform our retailers how COVID-19 has changed the shopper dynamic. For consumers, we know that COVID-19 has created a lot of uncertainty, so we are continuing to focus on keeping the right products in the right stores at the right price.

HH: Are you experiencing supply issues?

CH: Our manufacturing facilities and distribution centers continue to utilize best-in-class safety protocols to maintain food security and supply. These enhanced protocols will not change for the foreseeable future. Our safety protocols include wearing masks, physical distancing, and temperature checks when checking into work each day, in addition to adjusted work schedules and work teams to ensure employee safety. We are also encouraging our employees to follow the recommended and mandated guidelines outside of work, adhering to all government health and safety protocols. These practices have served us well thus far, leading to limited service interruptions for our customers. 

HH: How do you plan to help IGA retailers increase their sales the snack category?

CH: Better-For-You (BFY) Salty Snack growth continues to outpace the broader Salty Snack Category, and Ready-To-Eat (RTE) Popcorn is the #1 Category in BFY Snacks, at just over $500MM in annual sales. As a leader in RTE Popcorn and the fastest-growing BFY Salty Snack brand, SkinnyPop continues to bring highly valuable and loyal consumers to IGA retailers. Pirate's Booty is the number one volume-driving BFY puffs brand, with the fastest turning velocities, and the Number One kid requested BFY brand! We're excited to work with IGA to use the National Digital Ad and other marketing avenues to promote our products to IGA shoppers. 

Don't miss these upcoming National Digital Ad offers for SkinnyPop and Pirate's Booty in 2021.