A new snacks brand - The Funky Snack Company - is being launched by Chaucer Foods (Hull). The brand’s first products include a range of bite-sized toasties, which are shaped like mini toast and are available in both sweet and savoury flavours, including strawberry jam, cinnamon & raisin, marmalade, Worcestershire sauce, cheese & pickle and bacon & brown sauce. Marketing director Richard Brewer, says: "The toasties are ideal snacks for both adults and kids and great as food-on-the-go or in lunch boxes. They are high on taste but low on guilt and contain significantly less fat than many crisps and corn snacks. When we unveiled the range at a leisure exhibition, the brand’s wacky logo attracted plenty of attention and the products themselves are recognisably different."

The toasties are available in 30g bags and will retail at 55p.

Ryvita (Poole, Dorset) is extending its range of healthier snacks with the introduction of Ryvita Muesli Crunch. The new launch is expected to help further drive the healthier sweet biscuits sector of the biscuits market, which has shown growth of 10.7% year-on-year and accounts for 31% of the total category.

Ryvita Muesli Crunch is an oven baked Crispbread with currants, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, oats and kibbled rye, sweetened with honey and brown sugar. The launch of Ryvita Muesli Crunch will be supported above-the-line with TV advertising, due to be aired this year, reinforcing the importance of this new addition to Ryvita’s portfolio.

The brand has a suggested retail price of £1.29 for a 200g pack.

Burton’s Foods (Blackpool, Lancs) will launch new packaging for its Cadbury Highlights range in January 2007. The exciting new packaging design gives concise nutritional information on front of pack and a stronger shelf stand-out. The new front of pack messages emphasise the nutritional benefits of the whole range being less than 100 calories and 3g of fat per pack.

Nadine Wilson, Cadbury Highlights senior brand manager at Burton’s Foods says: "Health and well-being is one of the main drivers impacting on the biscuit industry at the moment and is a growing market segment. The new packaging for Cadbury Highlights aims to emphasise consumer choice and give strong shelf stand out during the critical New Year period."