What’s the Newest in Snacks and Drinks? Ask a Snaxboi
A growing wave of premium brands are reframing the world of snacks and beverages as style-forward, self-aware consumerism. With high-design packaging and covetable merch, an endless array of prebiotic sodas, chickpea puffs, alcohol-free cocktails and upcycled fruit snacks are building their own parallel universe. Is this the future of grocery, a momentary anomaly, or a permanent subculture?
Back in January, Grub Street dove into the world of the "shoppy shop" – a certain kind of premium, independent post-bodega that has been popping up in affluent urban centers across the US – and the surprisingly similar product lineups they each offer.
Since the "shoppy" concept hit the vernacular, the number of brands in this world has continued to grow, with a flood of new functional foods and beverages arriving every week.
Chronicling the rise of the subculture has been Andrea Hernandez, better known as @theSnaxshot, the self-proclaimed "product oracle." Her Instagram account highlights her top picks from the torrent of new startups, but it's also a clearinghouse for the irreverent memes that define the culture of this new world.
Echoing the voice of fashion or celebrity-gossip meme accounts, these posts portray the world of premium snacks and beverages as a glamorous cultural scene, complete with internal drama and deeply self-referential humor. Shoppers, for their part, are shown as always chasing the next serotonin hit – "snaxboi" style-junkies who have more in common with streetwear obsessives than grocery shoppers as they fill baskets with premium snacks they can barely afford and carefully place their purchases on kitchen counters to show off to visitors.
Covetable brands have always been part of the grocery landscape, but the transformation happening in the "shoppy" world seems to be mirroring the shifts that have taken place in high fashion over the last couple decades, driven largely by social media: a breakdown of the barrier between creator and consumer, a healthy dose of self-aware irony, and the embracing of the high-low sensibility. I may be wearing Balenciaga sneakers and drinking Ghia, but I'm still coming home to a tiny studio apartment in Bushwick.
The future of this world will depend on the staying power of its brands. It's a crowded scene, and repurchase will ultimately determine who lives or dies. When you're in such a rarefied – and pricey – world, though, what does success look like? A place on a national grocer's shelves? Partnership with a major CPG? Or just a prominent spot at Erewhon?
In the meantime, the new products keep hitting the shelves – and the snaxboi cognoscenti can't get enough.
Ready to dive into the Snax universe? Here are some of our favorite recent arrivals:
