Snackification: Our love affair with snacks
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ruth Alexander looks at the world of snacks. Have we always snacked or is it a more modern phenomenon that started with formal meal patterns? What snacks have been popular through the ages, what’s the industry doing now and what could we be eating in the future?
We talk to food historians Dr Annie Gray and Professor Janis Thiessen, the former CEO of Unilever Paul Polman - who remembers the rise of some of the biggest brands - and Christine Cochran from the international trade association SNAC International.
We also hear from snack fans across the world.
If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game, |
| 0:05.9 | a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible |
| 0:10.7 | story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:15.1 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to fix. |
| 0:26.2 | The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. |
| 0:29.1 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.9 | Roasted peanuts, crisps, fizzy sweets, rice crackers, mini peppers filled with garlic cheese, chocolate, on top of bread. |
| 0:44.6 | We posted on the BBC World Service Facebook page asking, what's your favourite snack? |
| 0:50.0 | And these were just a few of the many, many things you like to nibble on. |
| 0:54.4 | As humans have been snacking for thousands of years. |
| 0:57.4 | But in modern times, a huge industry has grown up around it. |
| 1:01.3 | I would say it's about $1.2 to $1.5 trillion worth of goods being sold in the snacking category. |
| 1:09.0 | And there are more products hitting the shelves every week. |
| 1:12.6 | We've got sweet potato casserole. |
| 1:16.1 | Potato chips. |
| 1:17.5 | Sounds crazy, right? |
| 1:18.9 | You got mixed berry lemonade-flavored chips, pink lemonade-flavored kit cats. |
| 1:24.0 | It's all about taste, convenience, indulgence. |
| 1:27.7 | A snack is an affordable luxury. |
| 1:30.4 | In this episode of the food chain from the BBC World Service with me Ruth Alexander, |
| 1:35.3 | we're exploring why we're so in love with snack foods, |
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