KEY INTERVIEW: New Strategies to Innovate With Fruit

09 Jul 2014 --- Taura Natural Ingredients knows how to innovate with fruit. The company – which produces concentrated real fruit pieces – has big plans to tap into rising consumer demand for natural and healthy ingredients on a global scale. Here, its newly appointed head of sales and marketing EMEA, Peter Forceville, talks to FoodIngredientsFirst about Taura’s ambitions for the future.

The market for fruit-based snacks is in growth and this is set to continue, says Peter Forceville, head of sales and marketing EMEA at Taura Natural Ingredients, a global supplier of real fruit pieces to a range of food categories.

“Sales of snacking and convenience foods are growing and this trend, which has traditionally been much stronger in countries such as the UK, France and the Netherlands, has also now reached more conservative markets such as Thailand,” he explains. “But what makes it even more interesting for us is that within the snacking market there is now a clear trend towards more healthy snacks – and our concentrated real fruit ingredients fit really well within this.”

What else is happening in this market?
Forceville says that for Taura the key drivers for its ingredients are “healthier foods, exceptional taste, functionality and value”. This is the same across all of the sectors where the company operates, which includes snacking but also bakery, breakfast cereals, chocolate and confectionery.

“Effectively what we are seeing is a polarization of the market,” he says. “In the past, we saw a lot of cheaper fruit ingredient solutions produced with a focus on keeping costs down, but without offering much else in the way of benefits. In effect, this meant that many fruit ingredients didn’t really contain much actual fruit. What we are seeing more and more of in our industry nowadays is that it is being driven by consumers, and consumers appreciate authenticity. This means there is pressure on manufacturers to use better quality fruit ingredients, which is good news for us. For every 100g of concentrated fruit pieces we produce, we use up to 600g of fruit, and this is an increasingly appealing message for shoppers.”

Taura uses a proprietary process called Ultra Rapid Concentration (URC), which concentrates fruit into pieces, flakes and pastes and pieces for use in a range of applications. The company operates in two main segments: snacking and ingredients. The fastest growing is fruit snacking solutions. Fruit bars are popular, as are bags of 100% fruit pieces either alone or mixed in with another product such as nuts. In the ingredients market bakery, breakfast cereals and chocolate are among the most important sectors.

Is the issue of nutritional health claims a challenging one for Taura?
A key growth area for Taura Natural Ingredients is helping its customers create real fruit snack concepts that are aimed at children of all ages, designed principally as an alternative to less healthy products such as candy and potato chips.

“Big areas for us right now are the markets for toddler and teen snacks, and we have developed solutions that can be dedicated to both,” says Forceville. “For instance – and this is a very new thing – by end of this year we will start to be able to offer fruit pieces in bespoke shapes to our customers. Right now we can supply pieces, flakes, strings. But by the end of year we will be able to offer any shape such as balls, cubes and stars with an appealing soft and non-sticky texture. We believe it’s really going to increase the fun ratio.”

Fruit is blessed with a ‘health halo’ that resonates with consumers – particularly parents looking for healthier snack options for their children. However, the issue of using health claims on products designed for kids is a thorny one, admits Forceville, although he also insists Taura is in a strong position.

“We have good cards in our hands,” he explains. “The products we create are natural and offer a high fruit content. They can be one of your five a day and we offer many no-added-sugar options that include naturally occurring sugars only. These are all good flags and where appropriate we believe it’s right to make justified health claims. However, at the same time we believe there is no place for misleading marketing communications in our industry.”

What NPD is the company working on?
Forceville says innovation is at the heart of everything Taura does and at any one time the company is working on multiple NPD projects. Gluten-free is a big deal right now, he says, and because Taura’s fruit pieces are free of all the main allergens, they are in a strong position to capitalise on this opportunity.

Ramping up the health credentials of fruit further is another avenue for Taura. Last year the company launched a new functional fruit line-up with three variants: URC Fruit & Protein (using pea proteins), URC Fruit & Energy (including natural caffeine) and URC Fruit & Fibre (using natural fibre from fruit and healthy grains).

The concepts are suitable for creating nutritious bagged snacks and snack bars, and can also be included in applications such as chocolate, baked goods and breakfast cereals.

Alongside this, the company also revealed a range of texture concepts last year in the form of its Inclusions range, which blends Taura’s URC fruit with other ingredients such as biscuit pieces, cereals and ancient gains including quinoa and chia.

Taura is also increasingly working with vegetables, combining them with fruit to create pieces with new flavours and an even greater health halo than fruit alone. “It’s all about going beyond fruit,” says Forceville. “We take a piece of fruit and we ask ourselves: ‘This is fantastic already, but what can we do to make it even better?’ We never stop being creative with fruit. It’s a key part of our value proposition.”

What will the future of this market look like?
Supermarkets are under increasing pressure to offer healthier options to consumers, and as part of this many have begun removing confectionery from checkout areas, creating an opening for alternatives. This could well be the start of another wave of opportunity for Taura.

“I believe the biggest potential is to replace an added sugar-based product with our fruit-based product,” he explains. “If you look at the overall market, we can be part of that story as people start snacking in healthier ways. If we can play a role in that story then we – and our customers – can definitely benefit from that trend.”

And Taura is ready. Forceville says the company has already made plans for structural growth over the next few years, and it is all set to increase its capacity as well as the range of what it can offer. “The market has changed,” he says. “When it comes to fruit ingredients, manufacturers and consumers are less interested in what is cheapest. They want the best there is, competitively priced. We’re ready to ride that wave.”

By Sonya Hook