The Food Scout

I was food scouting in Chicago recently and ran into a facing of nutrition bars in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.

Now for me, one of the appeals of nutrition bars is that they can sit in your desk, car, gym bag, pocket or wherever you happen to be that a meal or snack is not readily available. So the idea of a bar you have to keep in the refrigerator seems to kill the convenience of bars a little.

At first, I thought this was a Marie’s salad dressing or Kraft Velveeta merchandising gimmick, wherein shelf-stable products are sold in the produce section or dairy case to enhance their fresh perception. But after a look at the website I found that, while the active cultures live longer if kept refrigerated, they can survive up to 2 weeks in an ambient state.

Still, though, I think what we’re looking at is an attempt by a company to leverage the halo that yogurt enjoys into the bar category by selling the bars in the yogurt aisle.

Looks like grocers are going to build some more refrigerated shelf space to accommodate what could be a whole new section of the dairy case.