Popping breath mints, chocolate with protein: 5 products showcase the future of snacking

More than 14,500 people arrived in Indianapolis last week for the 2025 Sweets & Snacks Expo, where food giants such as Hershey, Ferrero, Conagra Brands and Mars Wrigley showcased many signature offerings.

Just steps away from these sprawling displays were hundreds of smaller candy and snack innovators packed into tiny booths displaying their novel products to retailers, competitors and other attendees.

Some of the offerings are just a few months old. Others have been around for a few years. But the one thing manufacturers of these products have in common is they’re either looking for their big break or to further expand in a food space deluged with choices.

Here are five products that caught our attention:

breathROX brings a pop to stagnant mint space

Fizzy breath month brand breathROX wants to refresh a category that’s gone bad.

breathROX contains Pop Rocks-like crystals that assist in scrubbing the mouth, zinc that helps neutralize gas leading to bad breath and a popping action that plays a role in activating a person’s saliva to help with cleaning. 

Jonathan Tanner, the brand’s CEO, said the breath mint space hasn’t seen meaningful innovation in decades and is currently dominated by products such as Altoids and Tic Tac that are nothing more than “perfume candy.” The last major breath mint launched was Hershey’s Ice Breakers in the 1990s.

“At the end of the day, we’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done in almost 30 years,” Tanner said. Breath mints are “a boring, static category, and we’re coming on with something that’s fun and something that’s functional.”

breathROX was created in 2013. It eventually sold more than $3 million on home shopping TV channels and Facebook, but the team knew they needed exposure in retail to grow the brand — an area where they lacked expertise. breathROX essentially went dormant during COVID-19, before it was sold to Tanner and other investors in 2023.

They gave the brand a much-needed makeover and relaunched it with Lynn Hesson, a former Pop Rocks executive, later that year. breathROX is now sold in roughly 4,000 pharmacies, hardware stores and convenience outlets, including 2,300 Circle K locations. It’s available in four flavors: blue raspberry, cinnamon, mint and watermelon.

breathROX is planning to invigorate another category this summer: energy. It’s launching caffeinated popping candy that also contains ashwagandha, B vitamins, ginseng, L-theanine, magnesium and zinc. Each pouch will have the equivalent of a cup of coffee.

Apple sauce pouches grow up

Bel Brands-owned GoGo Squeez wants to prove that apple sauce pouches aren’t just for kids. 

Last year, the company debuted GoGo Squeez Active Fruit Blend with Electrolytes that included the trendy minerals, contained no added sugar and was high in vitamin C. Unlike the apple sauce pouches targeted toward kids six years of age and younger, GoGo Squeez Active is aimed at active pre-teens, teens and even adults.

“We want to keep that consumer,” said Danielle Kellington-Welsh, national account manager with Bel Brands. “They’re becoming more of an active kid, an active adult. So it was the opportunity to move [the brand] forward.”

GoGo Squeez Active contains the apple sauce base found in the original pouch, but adds strawberry, pineapple and orange purees, among other ingredients. The pouches are differentiated from other electrolyte products because of the convenience and the fact that it’s shelf stable for up to a year, Kellington-Welsh said.

RxBar founder brings a protein boost to chocolate

As a child growing up, Jared Smith recalls that his dad wouldn’t hesitate to grab a handful of pretzels, chips, snacks or candy if it was nearby.

It wasn’t long before those eating habits carried over to Smith, who by that time co-founded protein snack maker RxBar – placing him in the unenviable position of wanting to eat healthier while resisting the urge to give in to the temptations he learned as a kid.

“That’s what led to [launching a brand that] bridges the two worlds between nutrition and candy,” Smith said.

In April, Smith launched Hormbles Chormbles, a high-protein chocolate brand made with whey and milk proteins, cocoa powder, monk fruit and other ingredients. The bars –  available in classic milk, salted fudge, peanut butter and cookies & creme – contain 10 grams of protein, zero sugar and 100 calories.

Chocolate is an attractive category because it’s an indulgent treat many people enjoy. The segment hasn’t seen major innovation in several years, beyond ethically sourced ingredients or zero sugar, Smith observed. A lower calorie, zero sugar, high protein chocolate brand in candy hasn’t been done before, he added. 

“A lot of chocolate brands you see on the shelf are the same brands you got when you were trick-or-treating as a kid,” he said. “That category as a whole hasn’t done much. And so the white space in chocolate I found was the biggest out of any other set for true innovation.”

Smith, who sold RxBar to snacking giant Kellanova in 2017 for $600 million, said it remains to be seen how consumers will respond to Hormbles Chormbles. 

With RxBar, the brand knew it was targeting a smaller demographic looking to eat healthier and how it could reach them. The challenge for Hormbles Chormbles is that almost everyone enjoys chocolate, making it harder for the nascent brand to figure out who to target and how to connect with them.

“We’re still figuring that out. Right now, we’re focusing on people that care about health, that want to watch their sugar, that like candy, that go to the gym, that work out and eat protein, the casual person on the go,” he said, before adding. “It’s really for everyone.”

 

FocusFuel brings clarity to caffeine

In an energy market dominated by messy powders and canned beverages such as Monster and Red Bull, Brandon Herwig and his partners saw an opportunity to give the multi-billion market a much-needed jolt.

The result is FocusFuel, a gummy launched in 2024 and loaded with caffeine and other attributes such as nootropics, electrolytes and L-theanine. The combination is designed to provide a smooth and sustained energy boost without the jitteriness or crashes associated with most caffeinated products.

FocusFuel was initially designed with gamers in mind, but executives quickly learned it had a much broader reach with yoga enthusiasts, busy parents, college students and other health-conscious individuals eager for a new way to get a quick pick-me-up. 

“It was a pretty quick realization of just how universal this product could be, “ said Herwig, FocusFuel’s head of brands and a former gamer.  “That was probably our eye-opening moment.”

Each FocusFuel gummy has 50 milligrams of caffeine. The format provides the consumer with the ability to control how much of a caffeinated boost they need, something that is harder to do with an energy drink. One FocusFuel is the equivalent of a soda, two gummies equal a cup of coffee, and three is comparable to an energy drink.

The gummy format also provides FocusFuel with a wide canvas to innovate and launch limited-time flavors, such as cola or mystery offering.

FocusFuel has proven to be a hit. The brand posted $1.5 million in sales in its first year, mostly through direct-to-consumer channels, Amazon and GNC. Nearly two-thirds of consumers return a second time, a promising beginning for the upstart business.

FocusFuel could be a complement to coffee or a replacement, depending on the occasion, said Herwig. That’s good news for the executive, a self-described coffee enthusiast who usually turns to the popular beverage each morning instead of his own gummies.

“I love that experience of coffee,” he said. “If I’m in a rush and need something in the morning I will take [Focus Fuel] instead of coffee but I am someone who grew up drinking coffee for 20 years.”

 

Magic Straws cast a spell on everyday beverages

Endless Fun is bringing a little hocus pocus to the beverage space.

The Minnesota-based company sells flavored Magic Straws that allow children drinking milk to add 14 different tastes, from chocolate and strawberry to cotton candy and bubble gum. Launched nearly a quarter-century ago, Endless Fun has sold more than 1 billion straws containing fewer than five grams of real sugar. 

A year and a half ago, Endless Fun expanded the line to encourage consumers to drink more water. The straws are available in five varieties, each a combination of flavors. Two of them,  peach lemonade and kiwi strawberry, contain electrolytes. 

As the consumer drinks the water, the liquid comes in contact with tiny beads in the straw that give it its first flavor before touching effervescent tabs nearby that add a second flavor. 

Endless Fun plans to continue its expansion by rolling out an immune defense straw, said David Ehrlich, Endless Fun’s vice president of sales. Another product geared toward probiotics is expected in the next couple of years.

Sales of Magic Straws are “not slowing down anytime soon,” Ehrich added, noting consumers of all ages enjoy using straws to drink their beverages. “We’re the only ones in the entire world that does this. Nobody else does a straw that flavors the milk or flavors the water.”

Magic Straws are sold by a wide range of retailers, including restaurants and grocery, hardware, gift, toy and candy stores.