Lifestyle Sports: Latest from Food Politics: Annals of Innovative Food Marketing: Snacks to Stoners

by Marion Nestle

June 26 2025

Annals of Innovative Food Marketing: Snacks to Stoners

It’s taken me a couple of months to get to this but a reader in Montreal wanted to be sure I did not miss this article: Twinkies’ New Owner Courts a Novel Group of Snackers: Stoners

J.M. Smucker is sending a “Munchie Mobile” on a road trip leading up to the unofficial holiday of cannabis on April 20 to promote Hostess brands like Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Donettes…Smucker, which acquired Hostess for $4.6 billion in 2023, wants to revitalize sales of a storied yet dusty portfolio by connecting with a wider breadth of consumers…including 4/20 celebrations…The Munchie Mobile truck over the next few weeks will hand out free snacks outside cannabis dispensaries in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey every day at 4:20 p.m.

Why 4/20? PBS explains.

Snack sales are down lately (blame GLP-1 drugs), so Smucker has to work hard.

Hostess’s marketing division, meanwhile, is getting better at targeting snackers at the right place and the right time, Hollander said. The company is scheduling its digital ads to pop up around popular snack times, such as after lunch and dinner, as well as using geotargeting technology to serve mobile ads to consumers at times when they might be driving close to a grocery store, or walking near a convenience store, she said.

Note: this marketing is aimed at YOU. Stoned or not, ask yourself: Do you need Twinkies? Will eating lots more Twinkies be good for you?

The post Annals of Innovative Food Marketing: Snacks to Stoners appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle