Döhler highlights key consumer trends

14/10/05 The Döhler Group has highlighted that consumer trends favouring pleasure, health, naturalness and balanced nutrition are encouraging the creation of new products.

At the anuga trade fair in Cologne the DöhlerGroup presented innovative products which engage with dominant consumer trends. Pleasure, health, naturalness and balanced nutrition are currently the factors determining consumer attitudes when it comes to drinks and food products. As an international manufacturer of fruit juice concentrates, fruit preparations, blends, compounds, ingredient systems, emulsions, flavours, and colours, the DöhlerGroup introduced up-to-date ideas in all categories – ideas that link in with current trends and open up new markets for the beverage and dairy industries.

Trendy fruits like pomegranate offer delicious new tastes, while functional additives like Omega-3 fatty acids, lutein and natural vitamins offer additional benefits and contribute to the positioning of healthy products in the lifestyle market. Top quality and gently processed raw materials and new fruit-based sweeteners for premium products, meet the consumer’s preference for naturalness. New low-calorie sweetening agents likewise fit in with a conscious attitude to diet.

A golden rule for healthy living states that you should eat fruit or vegetables five times a day. Juices and smoothies made from various types of fruit and vegetables are particularly effective in giving consumers the chance of staying healthy. At the anuga the DöhlerGroup presented top-quality juices, like its “red fruits with Omega-3 fatty acids” for instance, as well as snack drinks containing dietary fibres from oat, or proteins, nuts or fruit bits – for example, “Apple, banana and rosehip with oat“ or “Multifruit with vegetable juice”.

The major trends towards health and naturalness are ideally combined in Aqua plus beverages. The combination of refreshing water with fruity juice or tea and functional ingredients tastes delicious, is not heavily sweetened and contains few calories. The DöhlerGroup offers Aqua plus beverages with exotic fruits like passion fruit or pomegranate as well as with indigenous fruits like plum and elderberry. Value enhancing additives, like herb flavours or spices, enrich the product further.

Still drinks also fulfil the consumer’s current expectations that products should contain beneficial additional ingredients. The combination of fruit juice with soya, tea, milk or vegetables, with the addition of functional ingredients like L-carnitine and vitamins, offers a wide variety of alternatives in terms of product and positioning, from low-calorie to free of refined sugars, from wellness to fitness.

Low-calorie carbonated soft drinks clearly are market champions. At the anuga the DöhlerGroup presented classic products of carbonated soft drinks in calorie-reduced variants, sweetened with “Multisweet plus” so that they taste almost like sugar – for example the “Refreshing lime drink with Multisweet plus”. Fruits like pomegranate, blood orange and dragon fruit, and trendy colours like blue, green or red provide variety.

Drinking yogurts are one of the most solidly established sectors of the dairy-based beverage market, and it is a field where new products are continuously hitting the market. At the anuga the DöhlerGroup presented new calorie-reduced varieties of drinking yogurt involving innovative sweeteners and – through the combination of fruit with vegetables like tomato or pepper – offering new positioning options based on healthy life trends. For instance, customers were offered the chance of trying a “Passion fruit and tomato” drinking yogurt.

The production of ultra-natural healthy beverages with an outstanding taste is made possible by new methods based on Döhler’s research. Basic raw ingredients like malt, tea, yogurt and juice can be used to make new bases for beverages or dairy products. While the basis for this is fermentation, one of the oldest human techniques for preserving foods, alcoholic fermentation is avoided. The sparing concentration of the fermented substances makes it possible for them to be used in beverage bases without any loss of their valuable ingredients. Based on the healthy ingredient malt, the DöhlerGroup has created new non-alcoholic beverages. The wide range of flavours displayed at anuga extended from lemon and apple drinks to non-alcoholic drinks resembling beer and with a hop flavour, or non-alcoholic malt-based soft drinks with natural fruit flavours or tasting like cola. One beverage presented at the trade fair for instance was “Maltola”, a refreshing drink with a cola taste, made from a malt base fermented with lactic acid bacteria. The phosphoric acid of regular cola was completely
replaced by the milder lactic acid associated with dairy products.

The citrus flavour is the main taste factor in the majority of all beverages, and is in demand with consumers all over the world. At the anuga the DöhlerGroup presented citrus flavour ingredients, for example citrus fractions, as a component for many possible beverage products. These can be used strategically and in the most versatile way to bring about a wide range of tastes and flavours.