Sales of snack foods stack up across Asia

For North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, snacking on Swiss cheese has been his medical downfall. In fact, he's believed to love the iconic holey cheese so much that it's contributed, along with copious amounts of wine and cognac, to a weight gain that's put him out of action with broken ankles.

Kim's not alone in liking a snack or two (or five) - in the year to March, the world spent US$374 billion on snack foods. Consumers in the Asia-Pacific region spent US$46 billion, a figure that has grown by 4 per cent over the previous year. Kim is among the minority in Asia-Pacific who like cheese - globally it's the seventh most popular snack, but it doesn't appear in the top 10 for the region.

The top selling snacks throughout the region were refrigerated, defined by survey compilers Nielsen as "yoghurt, cheese snacks and pudding". Total spend on these was US$14 billion, a growth of 6.4 per cent in a year.

In recent years, New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra has been at the forefront of attempts to tempt the region with cheese, launching a snack in Taiwan that consisted of alternate layers of chocolate and cheese. Generally, the dairy industry has found that bland or sweet-tasting yogurt has been the gateway product to the harder stuff such as cheddar.

When it comes to snacking behaviour, though, most respondents suggested fresh fruit was the best snack, closely followed by chocolate.

The survey points to a gender divide, with women showing stronger preferences for chocolate and fresh fruit than men.