2017 — the year of getting personal and sportified, and improving digestive wellness

Everyone wants to feel ‘special’ and canny marketers can cater to this trend through ‘personalisation’ and appealing to the consumer’s desire for digestive wellness.

Personalisation is going mainstream: Campbell Soup Company has recently invested $32 million in Habit. This start-up company develops nutrition recommendations based on an individual’s unique biology, metabolism and personal goals. Habit takes the guesswork and confusion out of what to eat by creating a personal nutrition blueprint for each individual. Then it helps one reach their health goals by delivering fresh, personalised meals to one’s doorstep and support through one-on-one wellness and nutrition coaching.

Consumers turning to individually tailored diets offer a growth opportunity for food and beverage companies.

Consumers are already embracing personalised services such as wearable gadgets providing guidelines based on their weight, height, sleep pattern, heart rate and activity. The next step in ‘personalisation’ is consumers using their individual genetic profile to assess their metabolic needs and disease risks and then having a diet tailored to their needs.

“They want to feel more empowered and confident to create their own healthy eating patterns. It goes hand in hand with growing awareness that diet is a personal matter — and it’s another stage in the long slow death of ‘one size fits all’ dietary recommendations,” said Julian Mellentin, director of New Nutrition Business.

“The industry can tap into the personalisation trend in three ways,” said Mellentin.

• Smart companies will create a portfolio of brands, made to meet the needs of different consumer diets and preferences.
• They will invest in a multiplatform approach, offering support and tailored dietary advice. This means partnering with entities providing advice on diet planning or with fitness gadgets.
• They will invest in e-commerce, as it has proven to be a main route to niche consumers.

Anti-inflammatories — the ‘gluten-free’ of 2017

Personalised nutrition services can include tests for biomarkers for chronic inflammation, connecting to another Key Trend for 2017: Inflammation. If you are looking for “the next gluten-free” — the next high-potential long-term growth opportunity — this is it.

“Just like gluten-free back in 2001, many people say inflammation faces several challenges: consumers don’t understand it, it doesn’t have strong scientific support and you cannot immediately feel the benefit of anti-inflammatory foods. In fact, all of these objections are rapidly being overcome,” said Mellentin.

And like gluten-free before it, one of the most important drivers of growing interest in inflammation is consumer belief. Like gluten-free, inflammation taps into deeper wells of consumer concern than is immediately apparent. Like gluten-free, it is fuelled by multiple benefit platforms (including the powerful ‘digestive wellness’ trend) and early signs of its potential are connected to the intense growth in consumer interest reflected already in surging sales of supplements
 of the ‘flagship’ anti-inflammatory — turmeric.

Turmeric is a trend in itself — and also a health halo ingredient that acts as a gateway for consumers to the complex idea of inflammation.

And turmeric’s appeal is not limited 
to entrepreneurs. Larabar, a former start-up nutrition-bar brand now owned by General Mills, recently introduced 
a line of Organic Superfoods bars in three varieties based on ‘trend-forward’ ingredients, two of which include turmeric.

Sportification

Growth opportunities can also be found in sportification. Regular foods with a health halo are increasingly popular among people who do sport for health reasons — as opposed to elite athletes — and they want a natural product. “Some people have long argued that sports nutrition would go mainstream, and that foods designed for elite athletes would become regular food for everyone,” said Mellentin. “While this is happening to some extent, by far the bigger trend is one which has gone the opposite direction. ‘All natural’ foods are becoming more attractive in sport. Regular food companies, that are not sports-oriented, can drive success if they attach their product to the image of health and sport.”

Digestive wellness

Digestive wellness is a long-established benefit platform now entering a new era thanks to new technologies, new products and new understanding of the broad effects that gut health has on overall health. Consumers want to ‘feel the benefit’ and they are willing to try a variety of routes to get it. The popularity of products with a free-from benefit, such as gluten-, lactose- and dairy-free, was powered by the perception that avoidance of a specific ingredient would make consumers feel better. Many new types of avoidance are emerging — and new food types, notably fermented foods (like kimchi) and drinks (like kombucha) are taking digestive wellness in new directions.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Elena Moiseeva