The rise of better-for-you snacking
Consumers are becoming more selective about which snacks earn a place in their diets, considering nutrition alongside the eating experience. McVitie’s Penguin Bites deliver on both in its new savoury, bite-sized crackers with a light, crunchy texture and a source of fibre with 4.7g per 100g. Unveiled in June 2026, pladis’ fibre fortified snacking solution is the latest collaboration between pladis and Tate & Lyle leveraging our bakery expertise and ingredient solutions.
Penguin’s new savoury format
Healthier nutrition credentials can attract consumers, but taste and texture are essential qualifiers for repeat purchase and longer-term retention. In a cracker, creating the right balance of lightness, crunch and flavour requires careful control of both ingredients and processing. As crackers bake, air pockets must form within the structure to deliver the distinctive light and crunchy texture they are known for. For pladis’ technical team, achieving this texture while introducing fibre to the recipe meant choosing the right starch solution alongside a trusted fibre, successfully applied elsewhere in the company’s range.
Building on a successful partnership
As a longstanding innovation partner, Tate & Lyle has supported pladis over numerous projects to strengthen its foundational fibre knowledge, encompassing formulation opportunities, and understanding of how fibres work with other ingredients, and how they are easily incorporated into existing production processes or included in new ones. pladis’ technical team leveraged this know-how in a new product development first for the business, with McVitie's Penguin entering savoury snacking with the launch of Penguin Bites.
Using Tate & Lyle’s STA-LITE® Polydextrose, one of our NutraStrong™ prebiotic verified fibre ingredients, together with our starches, pladis’ technical experts created a cracker with the expansion, structure and an eating experience to delight consumers alongside the health benefits of fibre. The result? Launched in the UK, these non-high in fat, sugar, salt (non-HFSS) crackers offer a ‘source of fibre’, contributing much needed fibre into diets.
Bringing ingredient expertise to the partnership
- Collaboration and knowledge exchange: Our scientists are proud to act as trusted partners, and an extension of pladis’ technical team.
- Ingredient knowledge: With a leading portfolio of science-backed fibres and starches, we understand how these ingredients work in concert to elevate products.
- Category expertise: Our specialist bakery knowledge enables us to help bakery businesses create exceptional products that meet consumer needs and preferences.
Caroline Saunders, Senior Director, Global Health and Wellness at pladis, said:
“Tate & Lyle scientists have supported our fibre fortification work across a number of brands, helping our technical team to deliver healthier products that consumers enjoy, as part of our efforts to double sales of products with a better nutritional balance by 2030."