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1 GLOBAL SCENARIO OF SNACK FOOD INDUSTRY :-

The snack food industry sector consists of establishment primarily engaged in the manufacturing of salted
snack such as potato chips, tortilla chips, popped popcorn, pretzels and snacks (NAICS 311919) and
salted and roasted nuts and seeds (NAICS 311911). The snack food industry sector also includes
consumer-ready packaged chocolate and non-chocolate candies (NAICS 311320, 311340 and 311340),
cookies and crackers (NAICS 311821), unpopped popcorn and meat snacks.

The world snack food market has continued to grow reaching an estimated $66 billion in 2003. The
United States continues to be the largest market, accounting for about a third of the worlds total and
Japan and the United Kingdom, together, another quarter of the worlds total.

The spread of western eating habits to other parts of the world continues as lifestyle in those parts of the
world become busier, and traditional family meal time become a thing of the past. As a result, the demand
for snack food continues to increase.

Global market prospects U.S. snack food exports rebounded in 2003, increasing approximately 6.2%,
following a 9% drop in 2002. Since 1997, U.S. experts of snack food have hovered around $1.1 to $1.3
billion. The largest trading partner of the U.S., NAFTA (Canada and Mexico), accounted for over 53% of
snack food export. Exports to those two countries combined almost 14%. Our second largest trading
region, Western Europe, which accounted for about 14% of U.S. exports, grew over 10%.

In 2003, the largest export category was chocolate and candy at 44%, followed by salted snacks with 34%
and other snack, (backed sweet goods, cookies and crackers, meat snack and popcorn) with 22%. White
salted snacks experienced a 3.4% decline in exports, candy, chocolate and non-chocolate combined grew
almost 12%, and other snacks, almost 12%.

The global outlook series on snack food provides a collection of statistical anecdotes, market brief, and
concise summaries of research findings. The report provides a snack peek into the global snack food
industry, and offers a preview on all the recent mergers, acquisitions, and strategic corporate development
annotated with 37 information-rich table presenting market data finding, facts figures and analytical
research projection, the entire discussion contained in the global outlook series is designed to be
quantitatively informative. A regional level discussion mirrors the retail scenario in the US and briefly
captures noteworthy trends in select product segments, together with quantitative analysis of sales of top
product brands across product market segment such as, salty snack, dried meat snacks, crackers,
nutritional snack/trail mix, frozen appetizer/snack roll, snack nuts/seeds/corn nuts, potato chips, pretzels,
cheese snacks, snack cakes, snack pies, and snack-size chocolate candies, among numerous others. Other
regional market briefly abstracted with explanatory research commentaries, and statistical findings
include Canada, Japan, Europe, France, Germany, UK, Spain, Poland, Asia, China, India, and Indonesia,
among other. The report also includes an indexed, easy-to-refer, fact-finder directory listing the addresses,
and contact details of 320 companies worldwide.