Hershey's Will Start Selling Meat Bars

It's what every young child desperately saves his or her allowance for: the chance to go to the supermarket and buy a delicious Hershey's ... blueberry barbecue beef bar. Yes, that's a meat bar, though "we aren't going out there saying it is a meat bar," a Hershey's marketing VP tells the Wall Street Journal. "We're saying it is a Krave bar." For any non-dried-meat aficionados, Krave currently exists, it being a beef jerky line Hershey acquired in 2015 that turns out jazzed-up flavors like pineapple orange. The chocolate king's line of Krave protein bars, which debut in August, are geared toward the health-minded. "It is a very low-calorie, high-protein choice," Shane Chambers, the GM of Krave Pure Foods, told Food Business News last month.

"It is all natural, has no preservatives, and features additional ingredients like fruit and ancient grains, like quinoa," continued Chambers. The Journal points to a slew of data that suggests the move is far from a fool's errand: Market-research firm IRI found that from 2010 to 2015, chocolate sales grew at a slowed pace of 4.2% a year, which is less than half of meat snacks' 10.4% annual rate. And Quartz reports there are new challenges among the chocolate set itself, including rising costs, heightened competition, and more consumer interest in "higher-end companies" with a "smaller-batch feel." (Hershey's Kisses underwent a major change in October.)