We are a team of snackers. Come by the Bon Appétit office on any given afternoon and you’ll find a group of editors hovering over a coworker’s desk, plunging their hands into a bag of whatever product launched last week. Which is to say, we’ve been training for the Pantry Awards all year. By the time we got together to formally evaluate—a.k.a. taste—the dozens of new snacks and sweets eligible for this year’s awards, we were seasoned veterans.

Even so, the process turned up plenty of things none of us had tried before: a pistachio spread that senior cooking editor Kelsey Jane Youngman now rations by the spoonful, a frozen queso that reheats like it was made an hour ago, and olive-oil-fried potato chips that we’ve restocked in the office five times (each time in boxes of six).

We judged on flavor above all, but we also wanted products that display creativity and serve needs of consumers that previously have been unmet. Here are the 18 snacks and sweets that delivered on taste and innovation.

Best new snacks

Tables in the Test Kitchen were piled high with snacks that needed tasting. (It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.)

Travis Rainey

Graza Homestyle Potato Chips

Graza

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Potato Chips

Graza has become ubiquitous on kitchen counters in the years since its launch in 2022. Now, it’s coming for your snack cabinet. Delicately crisp potato chips are made from thinly sliced yellow potatoes and fried in the brand’s extra-virgin olive oil. Flavors like Hot ’N Sweet and Salt & Vinegar are welcome at any cookout, but the Zesty Caesar is a revelation. Here, all the salad’s flavors—garlic, bright lemon, and a tangy buttermilk finish—come together to create a perfectly craveable bite.

One tester said: “At first, the allium-forward Zesty Caesar almost reads as a REALLY good sour cream and onion chip. But sitting with it a bit more, you begin to get a nice herbiness and saltiness from the funky parm hat really stays with you.” —Inés Anguiano, associate Test Kitchen manager