Holistic Health Through the Ages
13 Sep 2019 | Innova Market Insights
Gen Z’s are seeking physical improvement. Protein rich and adventurous products and flavors are key in connecting with these consumers. Nutrition that supports both physical and emotional well-being is thriving and generational lenses on health can help you find new opportunities.
Innova Market Insights’ Director of Innovation, Lu Ann Williams will highlight the changing demographics, with insights on targeting all generations.
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Hi, everyone.
This is Luanne Williams.
I am the director of insights and innovation at Enova Market Insights.
We are a global market research company, and we focus on innovation and trends and consumers.
And today, I'm going to give you some insight into one of our trends that we see happening now, Holistic Health Through the ages.
We're doing this as a supporter and a trends partner to the Annuga.
So, at the end of the presentation, I will share a little bit more about what we're going to do at Anuga and what information we will be presenting.
But in the meantime, I'm gonna take you through this trend and show you what we see happening in the market.
So, health is a trend that we've been following for many years, and, you know, most trends are not something that happened in one year, that's more of a fad, but this is a trend that's really evolved over the years and what we see now is health has become a lot more holistic.
And today, I'm just gonna talk about two of the generational groups, but the other thing that's happened is, you will all know, you know, the, the days of the entire family getting together and watching one TV show or, you know, only listening to music on the radio, they're over, you know, everybody can do their own thing.
You can really tailor your entire life, your music, your entertainment, but also your food.
So, the way you approach your consumers also has to keep in mind this whole tailored approach, and you have to know who your consumer is.
So, This idea of holistic health, it really is about physical but also emotional -being.
We put this as our top 10 trend a couple of years ago, that health is holistic.
So, today, we're gonna look at how you can find some opportunities by applying a generational lens to the trend.
So, here, this is, just an overview that we did, looking at the 4 different generational groups, and Generation Z, they're our youngest cohort that we can really do research on.
They're overall, if we have to describe them in one line, it's that they're seeking physical improvement.
And the insight that we've chosen here is that 67% of Gen Z consumers have increased their physical activity to improve their health and -being.
So, these are Other consumers that are interested in, in sports.
They're also interested in some of the food that goes, that supports this, like, they're big protein eaters.
You can see here that they represent 27% of the US population, which is the largest, of all.
Again, a lot of these are very young, so I don't think really young kids are gonna be, you know, targeting protein.
But still, this is an up and coming generation, I think about my teenagers.
I have a daughter in college now, and what kind of trends?
They're super interested in vegetarian and vegan.
And trying new things.
Millennials, we've been talking about a lot, for the past 5 or 6 years.
They're now all about balancing their body and their mind.
So here, the insight that we chose is 53% of US millennials are focused on increasing their happiness.
So you can imagine.
We've, again, over the past 10 years since we had the big economic downturn, which is really when we started focusing on millennials in a big way, and that the challenges that they're, they're facing, they've had a rough time.
So it's not surprising that now a majority of them say they are now going to focus on their happiness.
And if you underneath that, we've also listed a few things like, Green Appeal.
This is a consumer that is really lead, lead, leading, sorry, the plant-based movement.
They're interested in healthy indulgence.
They're looking for a feel-good marketing.
So, Storytelling is, is one of the, the tactics that you could use to reach this population.
Today, we've just used the US population as an example, but again, you have to apply this to whichever market that you're operating in and see how big the, how big the group is, but this still gives you a nice general idea.
I'm Gen X, that's my group.
Strong focus on mental health.
And you can see the insight there, 55% of American Gen X consumers are taking steps to improve their mental health.
That's certainly becoming a bigger and bigger topic.
We see like Prince William, Prince Harry are focusing on mental health, for example.
So, this is something that we're gonna be hearing a lot more about, but again, focusing on, again, you know, not just about my physical health and what I eat, but also how do I feel about what I'm eating.
So, this is where we see A lot of interest in natural products, positive processing, guilt-free.
Also, things like low alcohol, and also the family is really important, in this cohort because we have teenagers that are growing up, about to be empty nesters and so on.
So that, that focus on the family is core, to this cohort.
And then the boomers, of course.
They're the ones that are really getting older and facing old age.
And so, you can see 54% of US boomers are reducing their sugar intake or have bought more reduced sugar products, as part of their getting healthier strategy.
So this is a cohort that's still a bit more focused on What I would say kind of the traditional health messages, things like low fat, you know, added calcium, but this is also the group that's going to the doctor and probably gotten some bad numbers or, or trying to get maybe got good numbers and wanna keep it that way, you know, so, they're thinking about their cholesterol and their, their weight and so on.
So, this is just a quick overview and now we're gonna look at two of these groups in a little bit more detail.
So we'll start with Gen Z.
So they're born after 1997.
So they're quite young.
Of course, we can't interview babies, but we're gonna talk about the ones that are making their own food choices in general.
So, this is a group they're eager to travel and explore.
They're focused on physical activities, as I mentioned earlier.
They're interested in eating meat-free, but they're also least likely to read nutrition labels.
So, if you think about, if you go into, you know, a store like Whole Foods or, or Sprouts, and think about the trends that we really do see there, so, Last year, our number one trend was discovery.
So, we know that consumers are very interested in discovering new things.
So, this is a perfect cohort for that.
We know that they're very interested in, in plant-based, and vegan and vegetarian.
And then, then if you think about a lot of those, I'm gonna call them like the super trendy kind of hip products, they do have a lot of front of pack messaging, and that makes a lot of sense because this is also a group that's least likely to read nutrition labels.
So let's dive a little bit deeper into this, so We ask consumers, what experiences and events do you most enjoy in your leisure leisure time?
And you can see with Gen Z, travel is number one.
So, thinking about that discovery trend, we know that this is a group that they travel, they also have grown up with the internet.
They're exposed to foods and people from all over the world.
So, a great way to tap into this group is to offer very adventurous flavors.
So, we just made a a selection here of a couple of products.
So you can see a Sichuan hot and sour soup.
Vietnamese pho, but also hummus snacks.
The, these are, these are the types of products and flavors that would appeal to this group and would certainly , be interesting to their, their sense of adventure and travel.
Sports and exercise is number 2.
I mentioned that this is also the group that's driving, the protein trend in a big way.
Food and dining experiences, food really has become, you know, a big part of our entertainment, especially for this group.
Still a focus on family days out and then followed by arts and entertainment.
So, you start to get a, a nice picture, of this group here.
So again, looking at.
The physical active part of, of this trend.
So, 2/3 of Gen Z consumers have increased their physical activity in order to improve their health.
And again, I mentioned protein a couple of times, and these are the types of products that would appeal to this group.
So, we know that beef jerky and meat snacks have really boomed over the past 5 years, so, This is a biltong with a natural source of protein claim.
You can see it's a savory adventure.
There's a description of the types of spices, how it's made.
So, and then again, the really big, 16 g of protein.
They don't read food labels, but they will definitely see the claims on the front of the pack.
And the other one is A peanut butter, a cookie flavored peanut butter.
So, this is kind of, if you think about, we've moved through different types of protein products.
We're calling this sports Nutrition 2.0.
This is something that, that's really easy to integrate into your, your typical food routine, but that offers that benefit that this, consumer is looking for.
Again, thinking about lifestyles, and again, people really are not on diets anymore.
It's really more about your lifestyle.
So, here we ask, did you follow any of these, diets in the past year?
And you can see that nearly 16% said they followed a vegetarian diet, 8% followed a vegan diet.
That's super interesting because if we look at consumers as a whole, about 3% of the population, and this really applies globally as as if we look at the US only or the UK only, about 3% are vegan, but in this cohort, it's nearly 8%.
So this is a vegan-heavy.
Age group, and 6% with paleo.
And again, paleo is even lower, so that's also interesting that this group has so many in it.
And then we looked at the number of product launches that have vegan claims and paleo claims.
If we look at comparing 2018 versus 2017, we saw a 27% increase in vegan claims and a 33% increase in paleo claims from a very small base, but still increasing.
We could do a whole webinar talking about plant-based and vegan claims versus plant-based claims.
That's a market that's still evolving and the dust hasn't settled yet, so we'll have to see what finally happens there.
But overall, we can say there's, there's definitely increasing interest.
And again, I mentioned they don't like to read, they don't, or at least likely to read food labels, but frontal plaque claims would be very important to get your message across to this consumer.
OK.
So now let's talk about Generation X.
This is my cohort, and I guess probably a lot of you that are watching this are Gen Xers as.
So we're 39 to 54 years old.
We favor family time and socializing.
We have a strong focus on our mental health.
We're also reducing meat, alcohol, and caffeine, and we also are really interested in natural and organic foods.
So again, asked which experiences and events do you enjoy most in your leisure time?
Family days, number one.
And if you look at the products that we selected on the right, one way to appeal to this group would be sharing products or products that are made to be shared.
So, a couple of examples of, of, chips, but also with quite interesting flavors.
I think about my teenagers at home and the discussions that we have.
So this would definitely be something that, that we would love to try together.
And when I look at the mozzarella, I think about taco night.
It's definitely, we always buy cheese in a bag like this because we love to make our own tacos.
And again, this is always, my teenagers request that at least once a week.
So that, that really plays into not only family days, but also the food dining experience, followed by travel, and then sports and exercise, and then health and wellness.
So, again, this is slightly different than, than the Gen Z.
Hierarchy, but again, you can see how you can tailor what you're making to this specific cohort, but also going a bit broader to, in this case, some of those Gen X kids or the Gen Z kids are the kids of Gen X.
So, how do you now look for opportunities that could appeal to both of them?
Also, when it comes to improving mental health, this is where there's a, a nice overlap between , food that is good for me, but that I also feel good about what I eat.
So, I mentioned that Gen X is really interested in natural foods.
So, here's a granola, again, that's absolutely packed with all types of, of clean label and natural claims.
Positively processed was one of our trends also that we also continue to see.
Developing over time.
So, this really talks about how things are made.
We've, we saw a big kind of a backlash against, processed foods.
I would say around 2008, 2009 is really when it, it really came up on the radar, but you can also look for opportunities to communicate about how the processing, processing is a positive thing, and talk about how it's made that also kind of falls into this, this storytelling trend and also discovery.
And then this is also a consumer looking for guilt-free, so.
You should be looking out for hero ingredients.
So, cocoa, dark chocolate has become one of those hero ingredients.
Nuts are a hero ingredient, but that's a great way to build in some guilt-freeness into products.
I'm also, again, looking for other opportunities for emotional comfort.
So, again, this whole idea of guilt-free.
We looked at the number of products that have a guilt-free claim, and you can see that we saw a big increase.
In 2017.
So we tracked three times more guilt-free products in 2018 than we did in 2014.
And these are products that have a claim on them for guilt-free.
And an opportunity here is also low alcohol.
We know that 31% of Gen Xers have cut down on their alcohol in the past year.
So, and you just, you could see it yourself, alcohol-free has absolutely boomed, certainly in, in beer, and now we're seeing more and more alcohol-free wines as.
The CBD trend is another way to tap into this.
This is the beer that Heineken launched in California.
And now we're seeing more CBD beers, but it's more CBD products overall.
But this is definitely a way to kind of make a link to, to relaxation, And, and an ingredient.
So CBD could become one of those new hero ingredients in this space.
OK.
So just a few takeaways here.
So, you always have to look at your target market, and here, just looking at a couple of insights from overall, From these two cohorts.
So, Gen Z's, to sum them up really simply, they like to, they're increasing their physical activity.
They're really interested in new lifestyles, so they're most likely to make drastic changes to their diets, like in the, you know, with the vegetarian, vegan, paleo lifestyles, and they're also willing to be adventurous with their food.
So, adventurous products, but also flavors.
And Gen X, as I said, very often that, they're the parents, in many cases of these Gen, older Gen Z consumers, really looking for ways to improve their mental health, also cut down on alcohol consumption, also caffeine, but are also super interested in things like natural, positively processed, and also guilt-free.
So, a great way to make connection with these consumers.
So this is just a quick snapshot of some of the things that we're going to be showing at Anuga this year.
So if you're going to Colon is coming up really soon.
We will be giving 4 presentations every day.
We're gonna talk about, plant-based, our top 10 trends, which is always really popular.
We're gonna be looking at, the generations, and again, we'll repeat our top 10 trends because that one is always standing room only.
You can see we'll be in Boulevard, the Boulevard location of the Annuga and stand number 7, so you can't miss us.
So thanks for coming today and I hope that we will see you at Annuga.
