Our Dried Mango Slices Won Best Snack at GIC 2026
Behind the Award:
Our Dried Mango Slices Won Best Snack at GIC 2026
Ten categories. Ten winners. One Best Snack.
On October 27, at Grocery Innovations Canada in Toronto, our Dried Mango Slices won Best Snack in the Top 10 in Grocery awards. The other winners include household names in bakery, beverages, dairy, frozen food and more. And Best Snack went to a bag of Vietnamese mango from Montreal.
The award was handed out in one evening. The slice that won it took a lot longer to get right. This is the story of both.
WHAT IS GIC?
Grocery Innovations Canada is the grocery industry’s own trade show, presented by the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers. The floor belongs to the trade: store owners, executives, category managers and buyers from independent grocers, national chains and specialty stores. They decide what ends up on shelves across Canada, and when they try something new, they are thinking about one thing: will my customers come back for it?
Every year, the show names its Top 10 in Grocery: ten categories, one winner in each.
IT STARTS WITH ONE MANGO
Every bag of our Dried Mango Slices starts in Vietnam, with one variety: the Keo mango.
We chose Keo for what it does when you bite into it. It is grown for flavour, sweetness and juice, and it has very little fibre, so a slice bites clean, with no strings caught in your teeth. Its flesh is a deep golden-orange, and that is the colour you see when you open the bag.
We buy at the peak of the season, mostly in March, when the harvest is in full swing. The ripe mangoes are washed, sliced and gently dried, right there in Vietnam.
CUT 3 TO 5 TIMES THICKER
Here’s something most people never think about: with dried mango, the thickness of the slice changes almost everything.
Most dried mango on the shelf is cut thin. Thin slices dry fast, and they come out the way a lot of us remember dried mango: flat, tough and hard to chew, closer to paper than to fruit.
We cut ours 3 to 5 times thicker than a typical dried mango slice. A thick slice takes more fruit and more patience in the dryer, and it is the reason our mango stays soft and juicy in the middle, with a satisfying bite and a deep mango aroma the moment you open the bag.
EVERY BATCH, THE SAME BITE
A thick slice is harder to get right. What we look for in every batch is consistency: the same bright golden-orange colour, the same smooth surface, the same full shape and the same soft bite, so the bag you open in March tastes like the one you open in October.
TASTED ONE PERSON AT A TIME
Long before any award, our mango passed the test that matters most to us: people tasting it right in front of us.
Since we launched, we have run more than 100 in-store tastings. At every one, someone on our team cuts the mango by hand into bite-size pieces on a cutting board, and we tell people the same thing: start with the chips, finish with the mango. It is our fan favourite.
At the Salon de la Femme in Montreal this spring, we cut about 64 bags of mango by hand for samples in one weekend, working until 11 PM after the show closed. One sentence kept coming back from the people who tasted it: “These are seriously the best dried mangoes I have ever tasted!”
On our website, almost every review of the Dried Mango Slices gives it five stars.
SHOW DAY
At GIC, we were on site by 9:30 to finish the booth: mango cut and ready for tasting, crispy jackfruit and banana chips, every bag lined up. A quick team huddle, and the doors opened at 11:00.
The first hour was quiet. By lunchtime, it had picked up. A trade show moves at its own pace, and we loved it: buyers took their time, tasted the whole range and stayed to talk. We could have a real conversation with every person who stopped by.
THE CARD
Then a card arrived at the booth. It said Congratulations! and asked us to come to the ballroom to receive our award on stage.
ON STAGE
A little later, David walked up on stage to accept Best Snack for our Dried Mango Slices, winner sign in hand, next to the award presenters.
It is one thing for us to love our mango. It is another to hear it from the people who decide what goes on Canada’s grocery shelves. For us, it means the thick cut, the Keo mango and all those hand-cut tasting trays were worth it.
David was over the moon. At the end of the night, he tucked the award into bed.
THE SAME MANGO, IN EVERY BAG
The mango that won in Toronto is the same mango in every bag on the shelf: Keo mango from Vietnam, bought at the peak of the season, cut 3 to 5 times thicker and gently dried. Sweet with a tangy edge, soft in the middle, and easy to take anywhere: in a lunch box, on your desk or on the road.
WHERE TO FIND IT
Order the Dried Mango Slices online in 180 g and 454 g bags, or find a store near you on our Where to Buy page.
FOR RETAILERS
Want award-winning mango on your shelves? We keep inventory in Canada and support new stores with in-store tastings. Find out how to carry Nam Fruits.
THANK YOU
Thank you to the GIC and CFIG team, to every buyer who stopped by our booth to taste the mango, and to all of you who pick up a bag at your local store. You are the reason we keep cutting it thick.
See the full list of 2026 winners on the GIC website.
