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Overview
For years, food companies responded to criticism about the nutritional quality of their products by maintaining all food can fit into a balanced diet. There are no bad foods, just bad diets. That is starting to change. As major food producers face scrutiny over their role in contributing to increasing childhood obesity rates, they are under pressure to make fundamental shifts in the way they sell their products to American children.
Six times a year, 25,000 Wellness Foods subscribers involved in the wellness foods and beverages market receive cutting-edge research on the health benefits of ingredients, regulatory updates, formulation solutions, information on organics and other pertinent editorial.
Business Insights Ltd. reports the following key market trends will comprise the lion's share of the future of wellness foods and beverages:
Nutraceutical/Pharmacological Foods: Being driven due to rising levels in cancer, high prevalence of osteoporosis, women searching for more natural methods to help relieve the symptoms of menopause and increasing healthcare costs. Manufacturers are driving the trend by adding and marketing the inclusion of ingredients that provide specific health benefits.
Heart Health: Reformulating products to include ingredients that actively protect the heart, such as plant sterols, soy, whole grain and tea. Lead categories in the heart-health trend are snacks, bakery and cereals, dairy, oils and fats.
Well-being: Manufacturers are driving the trend by highlighting the wellbeing ingredients of a product in marketing and on the packaging, and reformulating products to include ingredients that promote wellbeing, such as antioxidants and pre and probiotics. lead categories in the wellbeing trend are soft drinks, snacks, dairy hot drinks and meal substitutes. Many products in these categories contain ingredients such as prebiotics, probiotics and antioxidants that promote digestive health, immunity, and skincare.
"Right" Fats: Trend is being driven due to awareness of rising levels in heart disease plus scientific validation that omega-3's slow down the onset of dementia and symptoms of arthritis.
Other key trends explored in Wellness Foods include:
- Nanotechnology and nano-bio-info convergence will influence over 40% of food industries to 2015. The nanofood market is expected to reach $20.4 billion in 2010. The risk for the food companies lies not in not entering the nanotechnology, but entering too late. (Helmut Kaiser Consultancy)
- Young adults are the key marketing targets for new healthy food and drinks: growing consumer awareness of the benefits of consuming certain ingredients, are likely to be more health conscious and have less cemented purchasing/consumption patterns. (Business Insights Ltd.)
- Snacks are the most innovative category in healthy food and drinks. They can easily be reformulated; single-serve products provide convenience to the functional food and drinks consumer, and many have been reformulated to contain no trans fats. (Business Insights Ltd.)
- Family health/nutrition concerns increasingly influence household food purchases (FMI).
- These trends shape Wellness Foods Editorial objectives as we continue to keep food processors ahead of the trends and well informed.