KEY INTERVIEW: Beneo Board Member on Why Consumer Demand for Naturally Functional is Setting the Agenda
10 Nov 2015 --- FoodIngredientsFirst spoke to Dominique Speleers, Member of the Executive Board of BENEO about what drives their research and their plans for the upcoming FiE in December. For Speleers, 2016 will see even more of a focus on weight wellness, sugar reduction, all things "naturally functional" and last but not least, digestive health.
On BENEO’s research, he said, “It’s all about the consumer – we always like to go back to the trends that we observe and that is driving company strategy daily. We see a few things that are spot on in terms of what we can offer and what the consumer is asking – one is that all ingredients are naturally functional and we fulfil this criteria for all BENEO ingredients. Another one is sugar reduction – this is becoming more important than fat reduction. We have several ways of approaching this, always combining taste with function. The third one is digestive wellness – we have 3 of our 4 major product lines where we can bring an answer to the consumer. These are our major trends we are using to drive our daily business.”
“There a few things that we do better than our competitors and which makes us unique – one is the taste. We can have the best science in the world but if the taste is not there this will not help the customer to consume it on a daily basis over a long period of time. We also have a combination of having the right taste with a good marketing approach in order to be successful. The regulatory aspect from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is also critical. We have a company that today has a unique combination of the right ingredients fitting the right trends together with taste, regulatory and marketing strategies.”
“We have a good process to update the strategy on a regular basis. We have the ambition to grow by 20% over the next year and we are in line with this target of growth at the moment. We recently addressed 5000 consumers over 5 European countries and observed that 52% of consumers see the difference between good carbs and bad carbs. Good are dietary fibre, slow released carbs and wholegrain and our consumers understand this. 51% also rate slow release carbs as generally better and 60% link slow release with sustained energy – one of the main benefits of our ingredients. It means that not only is there a trend but the consumers are actually interested in this kind of benefit and message.”
“A lot of the research that we have done and which is ongoing is linked to inulin and oligofructose which are not only good carbohydrates but also good sources of fibres. We have also demonstrated that a daily intake of inulin and oligofructose reduces the overall intake of calories in a significant way. Good weight management can be achieved in this way, or we also have the more standard inulin to replace fats, or using oligofructose to reduce sugar and therefore calories. One way or another we can promote good weight management because firstly people can enjoy our products because of the good taste, secondly there are less calories and third, if they go for inulin and oligofructose on top of that, we observed an effect on satiety, from seeing that people simply eat less calories.”
“Many food companies are trying to reduce sugar in a natural way. We are putting a lot of incentive on sugar reduction and on digestive health at the moment – these are our main areas of focus and we see these get the most response from customers. Isomalt is our main alternative to sugar in bakery and confectionary or oligofructose would be the other main sugar replacement. With digestive health, it is linked to EFSA, who has given us a positive scientific opinion on what I would call ‘better transit.’ We expect that this will be translated into an approved and proprietary data claim in the coming months which is very good for us as we have been fighting for this for the past 4 years. This a nice reward for us.”
On whether he thinks people understand the difference between pro and prebiotics now, Dominique said, “I am afraid that in Europe not much has changed, simply because prebiotics as such are not an approved EFSA claim. We will soon be able to use “better transit” which is a start but is not the whole story. We have worked hard to convince the EFSA to one day approve prebiotic claims. Outside of Europe we see that north America is becoming more and more open to discussing the gut and digestive system which is a good first step into the direction of prebiotics, but still we feel that more needs to be done so that consumers have a fair chance to get the message right. We will continue to promote this with big food companies to get people talking about it.”
“We focus on alternative protein sources in various ways. The biggest one in volume and size is from gluten – which is not always the one the consumer wants. People may say we have a conflict there because it is not free from. In consumer research in Europe, 25% of consumers are looking for allergen free products, including gluten; that still leaves us with 75% of consumers who still accept gluten. Then we have the gluten free part coming from rice protein which is also developing nicely. We also have more proteins available and it’s an area that we keep on investigating and developing with other vegetable proteins.”
“The major focus for the BENEO group is fibres, carbohydrates and rice ingredients alongside protein. Also our focus is on major disease in the world like obesity and diabetes; they are two events that we see are getting a lot of attention from the consumer. We think that in these two areas we have answers to give to the consumer. Increasingly we will be able to answer the consumer needs including to find a solution to these major diseases. If we could help to reduce these diseases it would be welcome from all points of view.”
“This a step by step approach – in my wildest dreams I would love every single consumer to take a daily dose of inulin or oligofructose or Palatinose™ as a good carb! But this doesn’t happen overnight, so step 1 is to continue to invest in consumer research to make sure that all ideas are also the ideas of the consumer, step 2 is to do the scientific research which we continue to do independently with external people so that its published and peer reviewed. Step 3 is to get approval by the main regulatory bodies around the world. Then go to the food industry with more consumer research and marketing concepts to convince them to promote their foods with our ingredients in. This takes a lot of time, so we need to be patient. A nice example of a food company that is taking steps in this direction is the company Mondelez, which has launched a new product where they claim 4 hours of energy. This is important and they were convinced about the sustained energy of Palatinose™ as well as the dietary fibre effect from inulin which is also included in the formulation. This product was launched about two months ago and is doing extremely well so far.”
“At FiE we will be showcasing “treat yourself the healthy way”, where we want to prove that it is not a contradiction to enjoy and at the same time be health aware. Thanks to our ingredients, consumers can do this. We will demonstrate that with confectionary, sweets or pastry, it is possible to reduce sugar on one side, replace fat on the other and still have the right taste and texture and we will demonstrate this in a very lively way so that people can enjoy this on our booth and get the evidence that it actually works. Then for the nutritional part we will highlight the positive feedback we have received for Palatinose™, Isomalt and inulin recently where we want to remind our customers that in the coming months they will be officially allowed to put claims on the pack and so they should prepare themselves, as the first one always has an advantage, so that is the other aspect we will promote on our booth at FiE.”
By Coriander Stone
