5 Key Ingredient Trends
23 Mar 2014 | FoodIngredientsFirst
Five prominent ingredient trends have been identified in 2014, with impact for both manufacturers and suppliers: More with Less (lowering waste and cost), Away with the Demons (sugar and salt reduction) , Go Natural (removing artificial colors), Bridging the Protein Gap (new protein sources) and EFSA Survivors (approved health claims).
Hello to everybody joining our webinar today.
My name is Stefan McClafferty, and I work with Food Ingredientsfirst.com, the leading provider of food product development, news and analysis.
We are delighted to welcome you to our webinar on 5 key ingredient trends that are becoming increasingly prominent within the food industry.
Today's webinar will last approximately 25 minutes and will be followed by a short question and answer round.
So if you have any specific questions that you would like to ask us, you are welcome to submit them during the presentation, and we will aim to answer as many as we can during the session.
We invite everyone to join in with our polling questions, as this enables us to form an interesting conclusion at the end based on your opinions.
Our speaker today is Robin Wires, who is the chief editor of the World of Food Ingredients Journal.
With broad experience and knowledge, Robin has a unique view on what is happening within the industry and which trends are currently ongoing.
Beyond this, Robin has prepared specific examples of how these trends are being addressed at the moment.
We are also excited to have Yasmin Ozdemir from Enova Market Insights with us today to help us with your questions at the end.
So I would now like to give the floor over to Robin.
Thank you, Stefan.
In this presentation, I'm going to go through 5 major trends that we see in formulation in the ingredients industry right now.
The trends that we have identified are more with less, away with the demons, go natural.
Bridging the protein gap and excess survivors.
And my presentation is drawn on content from Food ingredients first and the world of food ingredients with trend data from Enova Market Insights.
Before we come to our first trend, first some background.
2013 was a year in which the food industry was forced to look back upon itself and the lengthy supply chains involved before food ultimately reaches the consumer.
The European horsemeat scandal put the industry in a particularly bad light, with manufacturers looking to regain consumer trust through highlighting the traceability and origin of ingredients.
The massive amount of food that is simply wasted before it reaches the consumer also captured mainstream headlines last year.
Rocketing food prices had topped the agenda in 2012 but stabilized during 2013, but the long term trend will be upwards, particularly in the dairy industry, and cost reduction technologies will continue to be demanded from suppliers.
Another trend remains stealth reformulation, whether in terms of silent sugar, salt, or saturated fat production, with various ingredient suppliers launching new technologies in 2013.
Boosting the protein content of products also remains on trend, whether it is in traditional spaces such as dairy, energy bars, or sport drinks, or entirely new areas such as bread.
Greek yogurt has been the key growth area for high protein claims, and suppliers have been keen to ride the wave with new ingredient solutions.
With this background in mind, the first ingredient related trend we will look at is more with less, with the trend towards reducing waste identified as a top trend for 2014, this trend reminds us that it has enormous potential in the ingredients sector too, as manufacturers look to cut costs with ingredients from the waste stream or by formulating with less expensive alternatives to ingredients such as milk and eggs.
If we look at some of the background to this, according to the UN's FAO agency, about 1/3 of all food produced worldwide, which is worth about $1 trillion gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.
As the world's population continues to grow and as land and water shortages draw mainstream headlines, there can be little justification for throwing away perfectly edible food.
A good recent example that you see on this slide is how the Dutch nutrition center and retailer Abert Heim partnered on the launch of a portion serving cup, which is aimed at making it easier for consumers to cook the right amount of food, thereby minimizing waste.
It shows how major retailers such as Oberhe and Tesco, who've been very vocal on waste in the UK, can take a lead on this.
One of the reasons that there has been such high expectations for the food waste trend relates to patent activity.
An analysis conducted by O Market Insights on patents and articles that mention the word food waste revealed a steady rise in activity from 1995 to 2012, and you can see here the steep steep upward curve of 34%.
But most of these references relate to processing technologies for biomass production or use of food processing byproducts for new purposes.
There are opportunities for suppliers amid this trend as manufacturers will be looking to cut back wherever they can.
An ingredient that we have been speaking about for a few years is a flavor developed by Skelton Mushrooms where they use mushroom parts and residues from mushroom processing which normally go to waste to produce concentrate in liquid form.
But there have been a few new concepts in recent months from companies as diverse as Firminic, DSM, and Novozymes.
Last week we reported that the creation of new sustainable texturizers from side streams of plant cell walls is one area being addressed at Cargill's newly expanded European R&D Center in Belgium.
The marketing of sustainability has been particularly relevant in the cocoa, palm oil, and vanilla segments as manufacturers look to source sustainably certified ingredients.
Last month, Kellogg announced a global commitment to work with palm oil suppliers to source fully traceable palm oil produced in a manner that's environmentally responsible, socially beneficial, and economically viable.
Just some recent developments from suppliers in sustainable supply chains include activity from Cargill, IOI, Lotus Croplo, Barry Calibut, Cymrise, and Virginia Dare.
There are also emerging solutions to simply reduce costs or replace expensive ingredients with others.
One trend that we see in track product launches is that due to the declining supply of non-GMO soy lechetin, more and more chocolate manufacturers are switching completely to sunflower lechetin.
Palsgaard notes that ammonium phosphatide is an emulsifier typically made from rapeseed oil, which possesses a strong functionality than lechetin in chocolate applications.
Simply by changing the emulsifier from soy lechetin to AMP, manufacturers can achieve cocoa butter savings from 1.7% to up to 3.5% in a milk chocolate.
Industry innovation is occurring and even just looking at development in ingredients for cheese, we recently reported on several innovations from suppliers as diverse as Valio, Premium ingredients, Adam's Food ingredients, and Christian Hansen, and the latter has introduced the next generation of its popular STI cheese cultures.
And that takes us to our second trend, which is called Away with the demons.
And sugar and sodium reduction remain key trends in reformulation, and there is often a silent approach being taken, however.
As you're all aware, the pressure on reducing sugar is only gathering pace with new World Health Organization targets being assessed.
WHO's current recommendation from 2002 is that sugar should make up less than 10% of total energy intake per day.
A new draft guideline published earlier this month also proposes that sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake per day.
It further suggests that a reduction to below 5% of total energy intake per day would have additional benefits.
It comes as yet another study paints the carbonated soft drink sector in a bad light, with the consumption of added sugar reportedly associated with increased risk for deaths from cardiovascular disease.
Just this week, a commentary discussing the lessons learned from the successful UK salt reduction program by the campaign group Action on Sugar called upon the UK government to implement a similar voluntary reformulation program for manufacturers to gradually reduce the amount of sugar that is added to foods and drinks.
The calls to reduce the salt content of products have been ongoing for several years, but there has been a stepping up in commitments on this.
Nestle has pledged to accelerate the reduction of salt across all its food brands worldwide to support a WHO salt target of no more than 5 g of salt per day per person by 2025.
Most manufacturers are not actively choosing to promote their sodium reductions, however, instead they are doing this by stealth reformulation, and ingredient solutions are helping from this regard.
A key trend in recent times has been the rise in natural sweeteners, including stevia, monk fruit, and agave.
Launches featuring stevia rose over 90% in the 12 months to the end of June 2013.
North America and there mainly the US accounted for a dominant 43% of total launches featuring stevia, with Western Europe taking a further 27% of the total.
The most interesting developments in natural sweeteners in recent months actually came from Argentina, where Coca-Cola launched its first stevia sweetened cola line under the Coca-Cola Life name.
And it features this very striking green label.
Monk fruit is also starting to be used as a natural sweetener, and the US has seen a number of introductions, including Splenda Neattress from McNeil, which is marketed as a 100% natural zero calorie sweetener containing monk fruit with erythritol, sugar, and molasses.
And blends of sweeteners are also starting to be used in food and drink products, often prominently featuring natural ingredients which would not only be stevia monk food but also agave syrup, which is also on the rise.
Now if we look at product numbers, it is evident from product launch activity tracked that no added sugar, sugar free, and low sugar position product launch activity is definitely trending upwards.
With no added sugar demonstrating significant growth in 2013 from 2012, and a look at products tracked by Enova Market Insights found juice and juice drinks to dominate, accounting for 25% of track launches in 2013.
And if we look at some recent innovations in sodium reduction from the ingredients sector, you can find the following.
For example, saltlite from Christian Hansen is a natural cross-functional solution comprised of both bacteria cultures and enzymes, which allow sodium reduction of up to 50% in cheese.
Other recent innovations include activity from a partnership between Axon Nobel Salt Specialties and Giveden.
And development from algae salt from Ruier Group and Jungbonslower sulfur salt, which can be used as a salt replacer in processed foods such as meat products.
But the central point to all this is that the industry must keep the perception of the consumer completely central to how they operate.
For example, after one blogger's petition against the use of a chemical in bread generated widespread uproar in the US, the sandwich chain Subway announced plans to remove the ingredient from its bread.
Currently, it's nine-grain wheat, Italian wheat, and sourdough breads contain it.
At the same time, Kraft is removing artificial preservatives from its most popular individually wrapped cheese slices.orbic acid is being replaced by natamycin, which Kraft says is a natural mold inhibitor.
Growing fears of the carcinogen acrylamide is leading to solutions in this area too, and Novozymes recently announced the launch of Acrylaway high tea, which is the first thermal stable solution that reduces acrylamide levels in breakfast cereals and other products.
It's important to remember that consumer perception is the reality, and if consumers decide that they don't like or trust something, manufacturers will move against it, and this could be the case for GMO foods or it could be artificial colors, etc.
And the issue of artificial colors in particular is a very important ingredient category in terms of consumer fears, and that leads us nicely to our next trend.
So our third trend relates to coloring foods and reformulation efforts made from this regard to ditching artificial colors from formulations.
And if we look, there is a steady trend towards natural colors, particularly in the UK, even within the traditionally high artificial color sector of confectionery.
And the UK Food Standards Agency, the FSA, is constantly updating its list of product ranges that do not contain the six food colors associated with possible hyperactivity in young children, which is the so-called Southampton 6, and the FSA is publicizing the product ranges to encourage the food industry to participate in the voluntary ban.
It comes as new European guidance notes for the classification of food extracts with coloring properties have been recently adopted, and the objective is to provide simple and practical criteria for the differentiation between coloring foods and additive food colors within the EU.
And new European guidance notes for the classification of These extracts were taken into account and the transition period expires at the end of November 2015.
And if we look here at product activity, we find that even though natural colorings are already being applied more often than artificial colorings, this natural ingredient group is showing faster growth as.
And if we look at the details, 12% of the products tracked in 2013 with natural colorants also contain artificial colorants, so there is a blend often being used.
And if we break it down by category, we find that the categories with the most product launches tracked with natural colorings in 2013 are confectionary with 15.9% and bakery with 14.2% of launches.
And here if we look at product marketing, we can find various products carrying natural, organic, and no artificial coloring claims, and these include highly colorful items such as jelly beans.
And if we look at some innovation in the color sector to go in line with this trend, we have recently reported on developments from suppliers including Sentient Food Colors Europe, G&T Group, Diana, Doler, Glyco Red, DD Williamson, and Wild Flavors.
This takes us to our 4th trend.
There has been rising interest in high protein lines across the food and drinks market despite the fact that most of Europe and North America already gets enough protein in its diet.
And this has been driven by increasing health concerns boosted by the move of sports and performance products into the mainstream, and these are often targeted at the more generally active rather than athletes and sportsmen in particular.
And if we look by product numbers, 3% of global food and drinks launches tracked in 2013 were marketed on a high protein or source of protein positioning, but this rises to over 7% in the US.
And one of the key areas of focus in recent years has been the dairy sector, where protein is increasingly being used as a marketing platform, linking benefits for muscles and bones with general associations with sporty and health conscious lifestyles.
Over 7% of launches in the dairy sector globally use protein claims, rising to 20% in the US, and activity was initially largely centered on milk and dairy-based protein drinks, namely featuring whey, but more recently, yogurt has also emerged as a key high protein growth market.
And this is largely as a result of the rising popularity of Greek and Greek style strange yogurts, which are inherently higher in protein.
An analysis of global product launch activity with the protein positioning claim demonstrates the preferred use of high protein or source of protein claims over added protein.
In the United States, Chobani has set the standard for protein claims, and prior to Chobani, using protein as a marketing angle for yogurt was almost nonexistent.
Giovanni has effectively created a whole new angle for health by positioning their yogurt on this strong protein positioning.
And as more consumers become vegetarian or flexitarian, which is like a flexible vegetarian, it is important that there is enough choice in products with good levels of protein.
This is why a very high 20%, 26% of tracked meat substitutes carry a protein claim.
And if we look by protein ingredients, we find soy and wheat proteins dominate tract activity for products with this high protein claim.
And a wide variety of plant and meat-based protein sources are finding innovative applications and appealing health claims, whether it's in meat snacks, nuts and seeds, and salty snacks, and this comes as suppliers and manufacturers continually assess new opportunities.
And it's always fun to put a product perspective on things.
And if we look at how some manufacturers have adopted this, you can see protein claims on products as diverse as chia bars, beef jerky, and soy crisps.
And of course novel protein options are also becoming available from the ingredients industry as.
Where the standard whey and soy protein products remain strong, but new non-allergenic vegetable and grain sources are emerging, and these could include rice, pea, chia, and quinoa, which are all becoming more mainstream options, and this trend is only likely to continue.
Now the FIE 2013 award winner was Roquette's microalgae, which is called high lipid algal flower.
But other innovations that we have recently reported on include ideas from Gambia Nutritionists, I of Foods ingredients, ADM, VHJ ingredients, Christian Hansen, and ingredient functional.
And on that note, we'll take our first polling question, please, Stefan.
Yes, thank you, Robin.
So, after hearing our 1st 4 trends, we post the following polling question, which is which trend has the biggest influence on your business?
So is it the more with less waste management trend?
Is it away with the demons, so the sugar and salt reduction, is it going natural, clean label reformulations, or is it bridging the protein gap, which is protein fortification?
So that's either more with less, away with the demons, go natural, or bridging the protein gap.
Thank you, Stefan.
OK, that takes us to our final trend.
Now, the failure of most generic EFSA Article 13.1 health claims to meet the European Food Safety Authority scrutiny has led to a decline in launches with these ingredients with an active health positioning.
For example, Danone is now using a much softer claim approach for its Activia brand.
Now with this new campaign which was just launched with together with the singer Shakira this week.
But successful claims have been adopted, however, and hold increasingly high potential.
Now if we look at launch numbers, we see a steady decline in truly fortified and functional foods.
Assessing the top positioning of track new global product launches in 2013, it emerges that most have a passive health angle or a so-called food minus rather than an active angle of being fortified, with the focus being on natural and allergy-free content.
And in open market insights reported that the leading health positionings are, you know, additives, preservatives, allergy-free, gluten-free, natural, organic, and low fat.
With these functional active claims such as digestive gut health significantly further down the positioning list in this new era of rejected health claims in the EU.
But while probiotic and indeed prebiotic activity claims seem to have stalled in Europe, innovation with fiber remains on trend.
With fiber, one ingredient being used in new applications and manufacturers seeking alternative marketing angles, for example, Eco plus, which may have in the past been marketed as a probiotic or prebiotic product, is now positioned on a softer platform due to the European health restrictions.
And this product has 70%.
This product, which was launched several months ago in Germany, has 70% less sugar than the original Regicolt and contains fiber.
Now increasing recognition of the benefits of vitamins and minerals through government campaigns is also helping to drive fortification.
And a recent study by the International Life Sciences Institute evaluated the low intake of different micronutrients in several European countries, and the results revealed that besides vitamin D deficiency as the most extreme case, European citizens across all ages and sex ranges do not consume sufficient iron, calcium, zinc, or vitamins B1, B2, B6, and folic acid.
Now at the same time, consumers' awareness of vitamin deficiencies and the consequences and risks also seem to be increasing due to growing media attention.
And if you look at this chart, it shows that product launches tracked with vitamin or mineral fortification increased by 47% in 2013 from 2012, so there does seem to be quite a trend in fortification.
Now that takes me to my final slide in this presentation and relates to suppliers who have had European Food Safety Authority claims approval have been key to market this, of course.
And just examples of this are claims that have been accepted from Roquet, DSM, and Barry Calibat, and another on illegal fructose between a collaboration from suppliers Benio, Kasura, and Sensis.
But the biggest winners from the EFSA health claims regulation were vitamins and minerals, which have a long history of use and strong scientific support.
And DSM is especially taking advantage of this and recently published a paper on the appropriate assessment of vitamin E status and functionality.
And the European Commission has authorized an Article 13.1 health claim stating that vitamin E contributes to the protection of cell constituents from oxidative damage.
Now that concludes my presentation, but before we get to our discussion with Yasmin, we have a final polling question.
And just worth keeping in mind that so many claims have been rejected.
Particularly in Europe, are there any conditions, specific trends where consumer awareness of ingredients is so developed that the markets will continue to develop without the use of numerous claims on products?
So Stefan, can you give our second polling question, please?
Yes, so the second and final polling question of today is which of these conditions specific areas holds the most potential for future market growth.
The first option is gut health.
Then we have brain health.
Third is anti-aging, and the final option is bone or joint health.
So that would be gut health, brain health, anti-aging, and the final option, bone and joint health.
And in the meantime we have the results in from the first polling question.
With 37%, most people voted for the trend away with the demons, which was followed quite closely by natural colors for 33%.
And in the meantime, we have Yasmin Ozdemir from Enova Market Insights.
Yasmin, in your expert opinion, can you explain a bit more about these trends and why they're becoming more prominent in the, in the market at the moment?
Yes, of course.
I think it is very correct, by the way, with the demons is the one that got most votes.
So reducing sugar is top of mind for a lot of consumers.
Reducing sodium may be a bit less because not a lot of consumers are aware of the effect.
However, it's still very important, and we can see if we look at consumer insights that reducing sugar is top of mind.
And when it comes to sodium.
Reducing sodium content in foods is taking rather a stealth approach, whereas reducing sugar is taking more of a claiming approach.
So the reason for that is that sodium reduction is kind of linked to a reduction of taste in products.
So that's why we see that difference.
And when, when, the other trends, I think the cleanable trend is still very relevant.
However, this is, has been a trend that is more established over the past years, but we still expect some activity, in terms of non-GMO.
Robin, do you have some insights for us?
Yeah, I think, I think that's true.
One of the reasons I feel that the, perhaps the trend towards natural colors, and on that point, I just want to clarify one point, the Southampton 6 that I was speaking about earlier, that relates to 6 artificial colors that were identified in a in a famous study several years ago with hyperactivity in children.
So the UK Food Standards Agency has been lobbying a lot to kind of clarify that point and That you may have to put a warning label on products that do contain those colors.
So a lot of manufacturers have actually switched away from that.
But I think one of the reasons that perhaps the natural trend is slightly in decline is because there's been less marketing from this regard and that many manufacturers.
Are concerned about lawsuits that are hanging in the air a lot of the time, particularly in the US, and are therefore using the word natural a bit less and perhaps going for a more clean label approach where they're perhaps focusing on what might not be in a product and whether it's aspartame or other ingredients that have somehow, whether fairly or not, got quite a bad image.
So that would be a key point, and I think the sodium reduction trend, I think is definitely one that's that's very, very interesting, and I think that we just reported today in our Renovo publication that there's quite a big stealth reformulation occurring, particularly in certain products like the crackers in the US.
Can can you comment on that a bit, Jasmine, and what you found from your research in that regard?
Yes, that's totally true.
We see a lot of the big companies that are reformulating their products to reduce the sodium content.
And rather than claiming they are taking the stealth approach, and we saw that over the years it has gradually decreased gradually but steadily, and a few of the companies that have been involved in this are Mondeless across in the United States.
With their honey grahams and many others to follow, but I still think that there are some complications.
Obviously reducing sodium will require adding other ingredients like yeast extracts or umami type of flavor ingredients, or there are also the potassium chloride ingredients.
However, these have their own taste issues as.
So I think there are a lot of challenges to be overcome here.
So I do expect a lot of more innovation in this area.
OK, but I, I think, one of the key points has been related to, to protein.
There's been an awful lot of protein development in the US, but I feel that somehow that's, that has been quite underdeveloped in Europe.
Do you, do you, do you figure that that might change in the future, or do you, do you see this, this also this rise of Greek, Greek yogurt, which I suppose has been instrumental in this, in the rise of the US?
Oh sure, I, it's totally true that it has been underdeveloped in Europe.
However, dairy is a category which has received a.
A lot of attention in America for carrying this protein thing and as dairy is a category that is a product that is consumed a lot in Europe, we do see this as the first category that receives a lot of attention from the protein angle.
So I do expect this to enter Europe a bit more once consumers are aware of what protein does.
Another question we got was, what about vegetable proteins?
What is the outlook from that regard?
What I've seen, for example, which is very interesting, is that vegetable proteins are exceptionally popular in sports nutrition, and there is this whole discussion around cleaner energy and cleaner products, and plant-based proteins are very relevant within that scope.
So I do expect vegetable proteins.
To increase more in new product development.
So what is your take on that?
I, I see an awful lot of development and huge amounts of things occurring in alternative proteins, but going far beyond soy and really looking into, into new areas.
Including even hemp protein is something that you see a lot of rice brown protein, lots of development.
Now we have also the results of our second polling question in.
And just to clarify one point, and we received a question, what, what does EFSA stand for?
And EFSA stands for the European Food Safety Authority, which is the body that that controls or that's been instrumental from the European Commission in order to authorize health claims and Just see how the regulatory environment has been involved in and the second question that we had related to Which, which of these conditions specific areas hold the most potential, whether it's gut health, brain health, anti-aging, or bone and joint health.
And The key area we found was surprisingly, I think was anti-aging actually ahead of ahead of gut health, and that seems to be and that was on 37%.
Would you have any thoughts on that, Yasmin, and why do you think that market holds a lot of potential?
I think it holds a lot of potential because obviously we are living in a world where the population is aging, but I think the problem here is how to market these products.
So I haven't seen a lot of products that can explicitly position themselves as anti-aging.
However, what we see more is that products position themselves on platforms that are important for the more senior population.
So, on, alertness and energy and brain health, so those are the areas that we do see, but it's still a very small niche segment, but I think many companies are interested in looking at products that could, that they could develop for this group.
I think it's very interesting.
I, I, I personally expected the Gut Health to be by far the, the number one from this regard because obviously brands such as Actimel and Culture so established in the market that you would think that.
Most consumers would be aware of those benefits, and they don't necessarily need to use words like probiotic, which has already been quite Which is no longer allowed in Europe in this regard, but on the other hand, it's, it's still high, still 29, 30%.
That's true, and I think probably it's because, , first of all, the ETA rejected the claim, we know that.
And I think maybe that companies find that this market is kind of saturated for the moment or they still need to develop new routes to kind of find a way to claim around this topic.
So that could be a reason that it didn't turn out as number one.
OK, we have just run out of time here now, so I'll hand you back to Stefan to wrap this up.
So, thank you, Robin and Yasmine for your interesting insights today.
A special thank you to all our webinar viewers for attending and also participating in our polling questions.
I'm sure that these topics will keep the industry busy for the future, and I was especially interested in hearing more about the salt replacement trend as.
The on-demand version of the webinar will be available through Food ingredientsfirst.com, and we will provide you with the direct link to this video by email after the show.
If you want to get in contact with today's speaker on the topics covered, you're invited to directly email him at Robin@cnsmedia.com.
So once more, that's Robin at CNSMedia.com.
You will now be redirected to food ingredientsfirst.com for a short summary of our five key ingredient trends presentation.
And again, I would like to thank you all for attending our webinar, and we look forward to host you again in the future.
Enjoy the rest of your day and goodbye.
