Hershey's to start selling dried meat bars in August
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hershey's is expanding its meat offerings. (iStock/Hershey's)
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 bar. But we're not talking chocolate.
Try a 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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We're saying it is a Krave bar." For any non-dried-meat aficionados, Krave currently exists-- it's the beef jerky line Hershey acquired in 2015 that turns out jazzed-up flavors like pineapple orange.
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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.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It is all natural, has no preservatives, and features additional ingredients like fruit and ancient grains, like quinoa."
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." In October, Hershey's Kisses underwent a major change, removing the artificial ingredient vanillin for a natural additive.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This article originally appeared on Newser: Hershey's Will Start Selling Meat Bars