Sweets & Snacks 2026: Stars of the Show
The S.T.A.R.S. Standard
At StarryEyed, we believe the best brands do five things:
Seek a purpose that goes beyond what they sell
Target the most valuable, viable audiences
Align the brand experience across touchpoints
Refine to stay focused on what drives growth
Spark ideas to claim and maintain a category lead
Across 275,000 square feet of sweets and snacks, these ten tasty brands, including five new and five established (or reestablished), wowed our team at Sweets & Snacks 2026.
10. Veggie Vice
Get ready to make veggies your vice. Founded in 2024, Veggie Vice makes REAL vegetable chips with no oils, no starches, no fillers. Just freeze-dried veggies and clean seasonings.
The Starryeyed team and I had the honor of helping founder Riddhima Kapoor introduce her beautiful brand to the Sweets & Snacks world.
With miles of sugar and salt, we had attendees thanking us for the added nutrition and calling us "veggie fairies". Most said it was the healthiest snack they ate all week. With a pound of broccoli per bag, they’re the guilt-free, crunchy snack.
9. Behave
We first found BEHAVE at Foxtrot Market in Chicago and we’ve been looking for the low-sugar gummy stars ever since.
Founder Mayssa Chehata grew up in a household with no sweets because her father had diabetes. Later in life, she built the brand she wished she’d had as a kid: the first clean candy that doesn’t spike blood sugar.
Less than three grams of sugar per bag, no artificial sweeteners, no sugar alcohols, and a brand North Star inspired by lived experience. BEHAVE recently launched sour gummy lines and expanded from specialty retailers into Whole Foods nationwide.
7. Rotten
Stanford engineer turned candy founder Michael Fisher created Rotten on a simple but brilliant insight: better-for-you candy had taken the fun out of confections along with the sugar.
Inspired by ‘90s Nickelodeon slime culture and Adult Swim cartoons, he brought back the fun and thensome with Dr. Rotten, fans called “the Freaks,” and a tagline that says it all: Feed Your Freak. The product backs it up with 60% less sugar, no artificial dyes, prebiotic fiber, and crazy flavors.
Rotten won Most Innovative Product in a non-chocolate category with their Sour Tiniez, but the Spicy Sour Gummy Cruncheez made with real peppers was a fiery standout for everyone.
6. Evie’s
This one had my heart before I even tasted the “perfectly crunchy” pecans. I have a daughter named Evie who was born in Houston, just like this brand. And they’re both adorable.
Founded by Eve Ackerley, Evie's sources pecans directly from her family's regenerative Texas farm with one third the sugar of leading brands and flavors inspired by childhood recipes (think: Cinnamon Churro, Banana Bread, and Brown Butter Rum).
The cowboy-inspired branding and playful, Southern personality sets the brand apart and from seed to shelf, every touchpoint tells the sweetest (sometime salty) story.
5. Wicked Cutz
Wicked Cutz is a bold, better-for-you meat snack brand known for new releases in jerky, jerky chips, and meat sticks. And just when you think no other brand could collab with Cinnabon, they go and do something like this: Cinnamon Bun Bacon Jerky made with Makara cinnamon.
Having led the Cinnabon rebrand and brand architecture to guide licensed collabs, our team knows firsthand how hard it is to get licensing right. Wicked Cutz brought all the bakery-inspired flavor to protein snacks.
The product won Wicked Cutz the Most Innovative Meat Snack Award in Vegas with more collabs to come.
4. Nerds
When Ferrero acquired Nestlé's candy business in 2018, Nerds generated just $50 million in sales and spent years without meaningful innovation.
In 2020, Ferrara launched Nerds Gummy Clusters. The crunchy outside, chewy inside, poppable format took over TikTok, overtook Skittles as the number one sugar confection on the market, and drove the brand to $1 billion in annual sales (a 1,700% increase!).
At Sweets & Snacks, Ferrara brought Juicy Gummy Clusters, Mega Crunchy Gummy, and Cupid's Crunch too. Sometimes the best innovation is not creating something new, but combining two favorites (like Nerds and gummies) in a way only your brand can do.
3. Haribo
Kids and grownups love it so!! In 1920, Hans Riegel founded HARIBO in his home kitchen in Bonn, Germany with a sack of sugar, a copper pot, and a bicycle. Two years later, inspired by dancing bears at local street fairs, he invented the gummy bear.
More than 100 years later, they are in 200 countries and still the world's number one gummy brand with their joyful brand North Star still shining.
At Sweets & Snacks, they shared seasonal drops like Eggstravaganza, Sweet and Sour Reindeer, Build A Snowman, and a complete candy bar to fill your own bag. Now if the HARIBO team would just open the first US factory in Wisconsin to fans...
1. Justin’s
Justin Gold started selling handmade almond butters at the Boulder Farmers Market 20 years ago and built one of the most beloved better-for-you brands.
Some of our team worked on Justin's original positioning so it holds a special place in our hearts as a hometown hero brand. Hormel acquired the company in 2016 and in December 2025, Forward Consumer Partners established Justin's as a standalone company with Justin Gold returning as strategic advisor and CEO Peter Burns at the helm again.
The team shirts at the show said it best: "Established in 2006. Reestablished in 2026." We all love a brand comeback! Go support them at Justins.com.