TREND BITES:

Crunch

Why Do Consumers Love Crunchy Foods?

July 11, 2025

In today’s food scene, flavor isn’t the only star. Texture is stealing the spotlight, and nothing satisfies quite like a good crunch. From classic crunchy icons like potato chips and fried chicken to healthy toppings like seeds and roasted chickpeas, audibly crispy foods tap into a craving for indulgence and pleasure. As chefs and menu developers look for new ways to stand out, embracing the power of crunch might be the secret ingredient to keep customers coming back for more.

Why Do We Snack on Crunchy Foods

According Mondelez's 2024 State of Snacking report, over 8 in 10 consumers "pay attention to the sensory experience of their snacks." Think about your local grocery store potato chip aisle, where there's a growing variety in shapes and sizes of chips to cater to different consumer preferences. There's a double attack in each bite of our favorite snack foods because they feature bold, irresistible flavors and a satisfying, ear-pleasing crunch that leaves us wanting more and more. Chef and bestselling author Joshua Weisman explores this in his cookbook, "Texture Over Taste," where he explains that satisfying texture is crucial because it's what makes you want to go back for another bite—a phenomenon you'll certainly want to consider when creating dishes that drive repeat orders.

Turning Indulgent Snacks into Healthy Ingredients

Recently, the desire for the same pleasing crunch in snack foods is appearing in the ingredient space. Crunch is one of Whole Foods' 2025 Food Trends, where they deem it "the texture of the moment," because consumers are using crunchy, healthful ingredients like fermented nuts, granola, and crispy grains to enhance their meals. This is great news for menu developers because it brings those ingredients into savory dishes, letting you add layers of texture to excite and impress customers. For a very crunch-forward dish, serve Sweet and Sour Chicken in Rice Paper Cups. The comfort of sweet and sour chicken pairs fantastically with the novelty of the crunchy "cups." Plus, you'll be ahead of the curve because Datassential predicts puffed rice to grow in menu mentions by 36% over the next four years!

Try these crunchy applications!

Here are a few craveable ways to bring crunch to your menu:

Loaded Potato Chicken Wrap

Sweet and Sour Chicken in Rice Paper Cups

Tempura Wings and Slaw

Crispy, Snappy, and Crunchy

“Crunch” isn’t just the hard chomp you associate with fresh lettuce, pretzels, and maybe potato chip-coated Tater Chip Tenders™. What about the delightful crisp of puffed rice cereal or the satisfying snap of a fresh carrot? Knowing that consumers love crunch, consider using texture-forward language in menu item names to help customers choose based on what they're craving.

On our end, we offer several different sensory experiences in our chicken products. Our crispy chicken filets deliver an audible crunchy, crumbly experience. Biting into a panko tender gives a burst of tiny, toasted breadcrumb pops. And tossing back a few popcorn chicken pieces is all the fun of movie theater popcorn but with even more texture—crunchy on the outside with tender chicken on the inside.

How Sound Affects Taste

There’s a fascinating and new branch of science called Gastrophysics, which studies how our senses and physical environment affect how much we enjoy food. While the field of study may be new, the experiments within it are hard to argue with. The most famous experiment, nicknamed “The Sonic Chip Experiment,” tested participants perception of Pringles chips based on the volume of a crunch sound played in their headphones. The louder the crunch, the fresher and crispier they thought the chips were.

You can use this science to your advantage by leaning on the crunch of your products to ensure customers are satisfied by your dishes!

Now go add some crunch!

In addition to the toppings and chicken items we've mentioned, there are other easy ways to add crunch to your menu. Two rising trends to explore are tempura and chili crisp. Tempura is gaining popularity due to its simple preparation and global appeal. Serve a variety of fried veggies by coating fresh produce in tempura and deep frying. Or offer tempura boneless wings over Asian-style slaw in this simple appetizer recipe. As for chili crisp, it's one of the fastest rising ingredient trends in the US right now, with a 1,274% increase in menu mentions over the past four years, per Datassential's menu research. It's a fun addition to all kinds of savory or sweet dishes, and one of our favorites is chili crisp-garnished chicken wings like in these Flamin' Hot Honey Crunch Wings.