Nightfood Welcomes Category Expansion with First Global Entrant

Tarrytown, NY, Sept. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Nightfood, Inc. (OTCQB: NGTF), the better-for-you snack company pioneering the category of sleep-friendly snacks for nighttime, today commented on the nighttime snack market and consumers’ quest for better sleep in the post-COVID world.

This industry commentary comes on the heels of a major announcement by PepsiCo.  Earlier this month, the world’s second-largest food and beverage company announced the launch of Driftwell, a beverage designed to help consumers relax at night and get better sleep.  The Driftwell project was started in 2019, and the brand is expected to hit shelves in early 2021.  BeverageDaily reports this is the fastest Pepsi has ever rushed a new product to market.

“We started this project before COVID, but especially now with all the stress, we’re juggling a lot of things and need sleep,” says Emily Silver, vice president of innovation and capabilities at PepsiCo Beverages North America. “The concentration around sleep wellness or sleep hygiene has massively increased in the last few years.”

The Better Sleep Council reports consumers self-assessment of sleep quality took a drastic turn for the worse in early 2020, with 52% negatively rating their sleep quality in March of 2020, compared to 43% just two months earlier, and 38% in a 2019 study.

“Pepsi’s Driftwell launch helps us in more ways that just providing consumer and retailer validation for the sleep-friendly category,” commented Nightfood CEO Sean Folkson.  “Pepsi has stated they intend to make relaxation and sleep quality a major point of awareness for the American consumer as part of the overall wellness conversation.  With over 200 million adults snacking regularly at night, Pepsi’s hard work and marketing dollars will complement our efforts and help bring the spotlight to Nightfood as the leader in the sleep-friendly nutrition category.  With Pepsi on the beverage side, and Nightfood on the snack side, their efforts can help drive our growth.”

Folkson has long believed in the inevitability of a nighttime specific, sleep-friendly snack category which would allow consumers to satisfy biologically driven nighttime cravings in a better, healthier, more sleep-friendly way.  Personified on Nightfood packaging as the Cravemonster, these hard-wired nighttime cravings, along with decreased willpower at night, stress and other lifestyle factors, drive Americans to consumer over $50 billion annually in snacks between dinner and bed.  The most popular choices are cookies, chips, candy, and ice cream, and all are understood to be both unhealthy, and sleep-disruptive.