Who we are

The title

Snackapalooza is a commercial news organization. We report on the suppliers who make snack and beverage brands, and on the grocery and convenience retailers who give those brands facings. Convenience is not a sidebar. A large share of impulse snack and dispensed-beverage dollars still move through c-stores and travel centers.

The title is independent. Staff stories carry a byline and a date. Government series are cited to the issuing agency. Press material is labeled as press. Corrections run on the story with a dated note. We do not put a staff byline on a rewrite of a press kit.

The beat is the bag, the bottle, and the cooler door — including when those items sell in a 2,800-square-foot box rather than a 16-foot grocery run. We read the gallon as lot traffic: regular and diesel as the trip that still pays the facing. We do not run a four-grade pump board. Nicotine fixtures are a different purchase order.

The reader

Category buyers and brand managers. Brokers and DSD teams. Grocery and convenience retailers who live in the snack and beverage P&L. Foodservice directors who run a roller grill next to a chip run. The reader already knows what a facing is. We do not write as if they wandered in from a lifestyle page.

If a meeting is an impulse meeting, we judge the launch on clip-strip reality. If it is a destination meeting, we ask whether the chain has the footage. Mixing those up is how a supplier wastes a buyer’s calendar.

How we publish

A staff story is reported or analyzed by a named editor, bylined on this site, and based on primary documents, on-the-record comments, or original observation. Recalls cite the agency record and name the channel when the SKU is a single-serve convenience item. Inflation coverage reads BLS food-at-home next to food-away-from-home, because packaged snacks and the pizza program are not the same comparison set.

Company pages gather the suppliers and retailers the industry already knows, with filings and recall history attached. Advertising and sponsored content, if accepted, are labeled. Editorial staff do not sell ads. We apply for trade-show credentials as working journalists covering snack, beverage, and the convenience channel that sells them.

The editor

Eric Lazare is editor. He covers snack, beverage, and CPG as they actually move through grocery and convenience — facings, cooler sets, private label, recalls, and the suppliers who win space. Rona Schwartz writes reported files on pack size and the suppliers who win space.

The foodservice file is written so the kitchen and the snack aisle are not covered as two industries. A travel-center pizza program and a checkout candy strip are both convenience stories. They are not the same purchase order.

Show week

We cover the NACS Show for the snack, beverage, and foodservice programs built for convenience and fuel retailing. Assigned files — snack innovation, cooler sets, private label, and foodservice — are published on this site within 90 days of the event, earlier if the floor produces a fact a buyer can use the following week.

Exhibitor copy is not rewritten as news. A grocery case study that never reaches a fuel site is a different beat, and we will say so. The rest of the year is the same desk without the carpet.

Write the desk

Newsroom: editorial@snackapalooza.com. Corrections: corrections@snackapalooza.com. Editor: eric@snackapalooza.com. The masthead, editorial standards, and RSS feed are public. Subscribe for snack, beverage, and convenience-channel briefs without a popup.