Sweets & Snacks Expo: Your year starts here

Candy and snack buyers, importers, distributors, merchandisers and other retail executives looking to delight shoppers and win sales agree on one thing: their year starts with the Sweets & Snacks Expo. The show, May 21 – 23 at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL (USA), inspires attendees with the industry’s greatest assortment of new products, insights and ideas.

Combined, candy and snacks represent $104 billion in retail sales in the U.S., and $453 billion around the world. At the Sweets & Snacks Expo, savvy buyers have access to new and undiscovered products, seasonal strategies, and retail and merchandising solutions that turn inspiration into action.

“The 2019 Sweets & Snacks Expo promises to be the most exciting in the history of the show,” said John Downs, president & CEO of the National Confectioners Association, the trade group behind the long-running and growing event. “We’ve heard that buyers attend our show for three main reasons: finding the classic and new items they need to build the perfect store set, deepening their knowledge of shopper needs, and making connections to expand partnerships in the category. It all comes down to delighting shoppers. When we focus on pleasing consumers, everyone wins.”

With the consumers of today and tomorrow in mind, the Sweets & Snacks Expo has developed an experience perfectly curated to exceed expectations and meet the needs of a variety of attendees:

• Looking for the hottest new items that will fly off store shelves next season? Check out the New Product Showcase and the winners of the Most Innovative New Product Awards.


• Trying to build premium confections or alternative snack offerings? The Specialty Marketplace is the spot for discovering the micro and macro trends in specialty candy and snacks items.


• Want to know the five ‘hot’ snack trends for 2019, or gain a better understanding of the fine chocolate consumer? The educational insights offered at the Sweets & Snacks Expo are tailored to address questions about how we eat, how we shop and how we work.


• Hoping for a more modern approach for front-end or seasonal merchandising? The Sweets & Snacks Expo has you covered with features like Destination Retail and the unveiling of exclusive learnings from a series of in-store retail checkout tests recently conducted.

More than 15,000+ industry professionals start their year at the Sweets & Snacks Expo. A year’s worth of business in just three days? It’s possible at the Sweets & Snacks Expo, where you can turn inspiration into action and take real steps toward category success.