GNT Survey: 37 Percent of Europeans Looking for Sweets Free From Artificial Additives
21 Oct 2014 --- Halloween is America's number-one candy holiday. Also in Europe this event has become more and more popular. Whether you are in London or Lyon: all over the continent children are dressing up and going “trick-or-treating”. But when it comes to themed confectionery – being it black bat-shaped fruity gums, bright orange sugar pumpkins or blue ghost-lollies – many consumers try to avoid any kind of “synthetic masquerade”.
Almost a third of the British reject artificial additives. Even the calorie content is less important. That is a key finding of a pan-European survey conducted by the market research institute Innofact AG on behalf of the GNT Group, leading global provider of Colouring Foods.
According to the study, sweet lovers not only pay attention to taste and flavour: many consumers specifically care about the ingredients in their confectionery products. 37 percent of Europeans look for sweets free from artificial additives. Italian consumers are the most critical: more than half of them pay attention to non-artificial ingredients (53%), followed by the French (36%), Germans (34%), Spanish (34%) and the British (27%).
At the same time even the most critical candy lover seeks appealing sweets with vibrant colours. Here, naturalness is a key factor to influence the purchase decision. The majority (58%) of Europeans – among them 70 percent of Italians – state that they are prepared to pay more for products that do not contain any artificial additives, especially colourings (47%). Fair trade, organic or vegetarian product qualities have less impact on the willingness to accept a higher price.
Only 9 percent of Europeans think it is acceptable if additive colourings are used in food. “Also, less than 17 percent of British consumers approve such an ingredient. The majority, instead, believe food and drink should only be coloured with other foods, such as fruit and vegetable concentrates”, states Paul Collins, board member of the GNT Group and Managing Director GNT UK. “With Colouring Foods manufacturers can fulfil consumer demands and offer vibrant confectionery coloured in a completely natural way, providing a natural choice for every season.”
For the consumer survey 5,000 people aged 18-65 across five European markets (Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK) were interviewed. The online survey was conducted between March and July 2014 by Innofact AG (Düsseldorf, Germany) on behalf of the GNT Group.
