Nuts and Berries: The Most Accessible Plant-Based Foods

Just Nuts

Even on their own, nuts made an impressive showing on the expo floor, with Sahale Snacks displaying its new Bean + Nut snack mixes in such savory lower-sugar profiles as Creole and White Cheddar Black Pepper. Other offerings in this space include Recipe 33’s Garlic Dill, Black Truffle, Smoky Serrano and Lemon Rosemary almonds; Nichols Farms’ no-shell Garlic Garden Herbs and Jalapeño Lime Pistachios; Bubba’s Fine Foods Savory Keto Nut Mix, with almonds, walnuts and pecans; and Pizootz’s premium Virginia artisan peanuts in such flavors as Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper and the rather daunting Inferno (featuring habanero, Carolina reaper and malagueta peppers), as well as the brand’s Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper Pecans. 

As an added bonus, Recipe 33 and Pizootz offer nuts infused with flavor rather than coated with it, so there’s no messy residue to get on snackers’ hands. Innovation was also on show at the Nutty Gourmet booth, where Tony Varni, VP of sales and marketing for the grower-owned company, explained that its roasted and seasoned walnut snacks — including such spicy flavors as Buffalo, Chipotle and even Habanero — undergo a dry-steam pasteurization process to reduce phytic acid. Nutty Gourmet also makes a range of nut butters far beyond the familiar peanut and almond: Besides walnut butter in several varieties, the brand offers pistachio and pecan praline butters.

SunRidge Farm had some particularly inventive flavors straddling the divide between sweet and savory, among them Chile Lime Almonds with New Mexico red chile, Maple Mustard Cashews, and Sea Salt and Apple Cider Vinegar Cashews.

Offering nuts in a different form were Sunny Fruit’s Have A Ball line of organic coconut-coated fruit-and-nut snacks, including two functional SKUs, Fig & Walnut With Prebiotics and Cherry & Hazelnut With Protein; Pocket Latte’s Coffee Nuts, coffee- and chocolate-coated almonds in a Mocha + Sea Salt flavor, featuring 46% less sugar than the leading brand; and The GFB (Gluten-Free Bar) Bites in Banana + Nut and Dark Chocolate + Hazelnut varieties. 

Meanwhile, the folks at Moon Cheese, maker of a poppable all-cheese snack, have created their own take on the trail mix with a line of low-carb Protein Blitz Mixes in Crazy Cheesy (crunchy cheddar bites and whole roasted almonds) and Zesty Ranch (crispy gouda bites and crunchy pecan halves) varieties.

Nut-flavored granolas were in attendance at the show as well, including Purely Elizabeth’s Honey Peanut Butter Ancient Grain Granola clusters and Grain-Free Apple Walnut Keto Granola Clusters, and Lakanto’s no-sugar-added Cinnamon Almond Crunch Granola, sweetened with monk fruit.

Among the more intriguing nut-based products were Split, a double pouch featuring peanut butter and grape jelly in separate compartments meant to be kneaded, folded and eaten together; Octonuts almond and walnut protein powders, which can be used in a range of recipes; and Earth Nut, a plant-based burger made from peanuts, chickpeas and spices.