Electric Oven, TSK-968, with 2 Munchables Puff cereal boxes included for testing

Electric Oven, TSK-968, with 2 Munchables Puff cereal boxes included for testing. Munchables, Inc., a food venture in Corona, CA, has launched a line of expanded snack foods designed to be prepared in consumers' homes with its new Snack Factory kitchen appliance. The company hopes the concept of in-home prepared snacks will give it a competitive edge over ready-to-eat brands. "It's like making popcorn but with more variety of ingredients, texture and tastes," says Munchables president, Jon Tedesco. "We studied why most people prefer to make popcorn at home rather than buy it ready-to-eat like all other snacks and cereals. The obvious answer is it tastes better fresh and hot. Consumers also enjoy the pleasant aroma and ability to season popcorn exactly the way they like it." Munchables snacks and cereals are specially processed like pasta but are made with either whole grains or potato. The snacks are fully cooked before shaping and are dried like pasta for a long shelflife without preservatives. The process is said to trap a small amount of moisture in every nugget, like in a popcorn kernel. When rapidly heated in the Snack Factory appliance, they puff into low-fat, crunchy morsels that are ready to season. Developed over a period of six years, the patented appliance puffs the Munchables products using a super-heated stream of rapidly circulating air.