The Great Fragmentation of health drives growth for small and niche brands

The massive fragmentation of consumers’ beliefs about health is contributing to the break-up of traditional food and beverage markets and opening the doors of opportunity for start-ups and small brands, says Julian Mellentin, director of New Nutrition Business and author of 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition and Health 2016. “Big food companies are being forced to rethink their business models,” he says.

Key Trend 5: The Great Fragmentation explains how high volume opportunities are scarce and becoming scarcer. In some markets they may already be history, says Mellentin.

The shift in the food landscape is influenced by 25 years of digital sampling, mash-ups, music sampling, remixing, restaurant fusion food – all an established part of the culture that surrounds people.

Just as the person who listens to Bach’s Goldberg Variations at home also listens to Aerosmith or Black Sabbath while driving to work, people’s ideas about food and health have become a menu of choices from which they select and change as new information becomes available. We’re all food explorers now, looking for novelty and variety.

This is producing a proliferation of niches that smaller companies and new brands – often premium – are perfectly placed to serve.

In the future, smart companies will only rarely launch mass-market brands aiming to rapidly get high volume. Instead they will build portfolios of small brands, finely targeted at an ever-more fragmented consumer market. A few of these will become big brands, some will be big niche, most will remain niche.

The report gives the example of US giant General Mills as one of the few larger and more visionary companies already embracing the change. It has set up a new business unit – called 301 Inc. – to invest in entrepreneurs and early stage food companies.

“The rapidly evolving consumer landscape is dramatically changing the game in the food industry,” said John Haugen, general manager of 301 Inc. “Tremendous opportunity exists...to partner with and foster emerging food brands.”

As the Great Fragmentation moves forward, this new model will become the standard for large food and beverage businesses. The market-redefining power of this trend is illustrated by Key Trend 7: Plant-Based Foods and Beverages. Non-dairy plant “milks” such as almond milk have seen sales jump by between 20% (Spain) and 50% (US).

This trend is not driven by beliefs in veganism or vegetarianism, but rather by consumers’ love of variety and novelty. We’re all flexitarians now, using cows’ milk on our cereal, almond milk in our smoothies and coconut milk in our cooking as it suits us. And the halo of health and sustainability around plant-based foods means consumers feel good about their choices.

This trend has also been made possible by massive improvements in the taste of plant-based foods (which accounts for almond milk’s rise at the expense of soy milk), and by technical advances that make it easier to include plant-based ingredients such as beans and seaweed in good-tasting snack formats.

Fragmentation also underpins Key Trend 1: Beverages Redefined. Beverage giants’ sales have peaked, soft drink sales are plunging and fruit juices are struggling.  Small niche drink brands are reshaping the market. Plant waters such as coconut and birch water meet consumers’ desire for products that are naturally healthy, have no additives, are naturally low in calories and sugar, and sustainable. “Plant waters will be a $4 billion market by 2025,” predicts Mellentin.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1.      10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition and Health 2016 is available from www.new-nutrition.com.

2.      The attached graphics (which may be used for publication and are supplied in JPEG format) illustrate the forces at work in Key Trend 5: The Great Fragmentation, and show all the 10 Key Trends for 2016.

3.      Excerpts from the report are available on request from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

4.      For more information about New Nutrition Business, or to arrange an interview with Julian Mellentin, contact Kine Bjoralt at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

5.      Julian Mellentin is one of the world’s few international specialists in the business of food, nutrition and health. He is director of New Nutrition Business (www.new-nutrition.com) which provides case studies and analysis of success and failure in the global nutrition business and is used by more than 1,700 corporate subscribers in 42 countries.

6.      New Nutrition Business has offices in the United States, Europe, and New Zealand and affiliates in Japan and South Korea.

7.      Follow us on Twitter at @newnutritionb

18 November 2015 PRESS RELEASE

Familiarity of ingredients is becoming just as
important as naturalness, says Lycored

Clean-label remains one of the key mega-trends in the food and beverage industry – but consumers are increasingly seeking out products made with ingredients that are familiar as well as natural, according to Lycored.

This desire for more transparency is leading to a massive upsurge in clearer labeling, says Lycored, with Innova Market Insights identifying a shift from ‘clean to clear’ as the top labelling trend for 2015.

Lycored is offering food manufacturers the opportunity to harness this trend with its range of Real Food Ingredients that deliver taste and texture improvement in a wide range of applications. Produced from 100% tomato, Lycored’s Real Food Ingredients make it possible to use simple label declarations that all consumers will recognize. Depending on local regulations, this includes straightforward statements such as ‘Tomato Concentrate’ or ‘Crushed Tomatoes’.

Solutions in the range include:

·         Dry Tomato Pulp – a new ingredient, making it’s debut at this year’s Fi Europe, that combines an authentically fresh and vibrant red colour with a stable texture for red sauces (including pasta sauces), ketchups and soups. Dry Tomato Pulp does not turn brown, and is ideal for achieving colour consistency when facing variations caused by seasonality in tomato crops. It also works well as a natural colourant and texture improver in meat-based products such as sausages, in which many food colourants or starches are not permitted.

·         SANTE – a taste enhancer that provides a high concentration of the natural compounds that produce umami (the fifth taste) and kokumi (the Japanese word for deliciousness) to accentuate existing flavour characteristics while remaining taste neutral. SANTE enables product formulators to create deliciousness naturally and reduce levels of ingredients that can be unattractive on the label, such as salt, MSG and yeast.

These ingredients, and others, will be presented by Lycored on Booth 6S45at the forthcoming Fi Europe exhibition, which takes place in Paris from 1-3 December 2015. The theme on the stand will be: ‘Sharing nature’s wonder – from our garden to your kitchen’, which highlights how Lycored enables manufacturers to use ingredients from nature to create better-for-you products with labels that are both clean and clear.

Christiane Lippert, Marketing Manager at Lycored, said: “Clean label has been a major trend in the food industry for the past decade, with food and beverage manufacturers keen to highlight that their products are free from synthetic ingredients and additives.But today’s consumers are looking for more. They want to know what is in their food, not just what isn’t. They want their food to be made of recognizable natural ingredients and they want to know where those ingredients came from.”

Lycored, the global leader in carotenoids,will also showcase its unique range of natural red, orange and yellow colours. Certified Kosher, Halal, non-GMO and vegetarian, Lycored’s natural colours overcome the most common technical problems with natural colours by delivering heat, light and pH stability, with no migration or bleed. They bring a vibrant and authentic appearance to a wide range of products time after time – but not at the expense of a clean label.

Available in the Lycored natural colourings range are two core offerings:

·         Tomat-O-Red^®– a colour created using tomato-derived lycopene, which offers a more technically sound red colouring alternative to unstable beetroot and anthocyanins, as well as carmine, which is not vegetarian-friendly. It is perfect for use in fruit preparations, dairy products, confectionery, meat, baked goods and beverages. According to research by Canadean, lycopene is considered a key healthy red component of products by 38% of consumers who pay attention to the link between colour and nutrition – significantly more than for other natural red colours, such as beetroot (32%).

·         Lyc-O-Beta^®– sourced from Blakeslea trispora, this is a beta-carotene-rich, allergen-free natural fungus cultivated by Lycored. Natural beta-carotene extracted from Blakeslea Trispora offers a spectrum of yellow to orange shades for use in bakery fillings, confectionery, dairy products and beverages.

Visit Lycored on Stand 6S45 at Fi Europe 2015 to find out more about natural solutions for improving the taste, texture and appearance of food and beverage products.

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Kine Bjoralt, Ingredient Communications

Tel: +44 141 280 4141

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

@ingredientcomms

About Lycored
Committed to ‘Cultivating Wellness’, Lycored is an international company at the forefront of unearthing and combining nature’s nutrition potential with cutting edge science to develop natural ingredients and products.Established in 1995, Lycored is the global leader in natural carotenoids for food, beverage and dietary supplement products. The company develops and supplies natural ingredient formulations into four main business areas: active health ingredients for wellness; colourings; ingredients for taste & texture improvement; and nutrient premixes for fortification. Lycored is based in Israel, with sales & production operations in the UK, Switzerland, the US, Ukraine and China. For more information visit www.lycored.com.

IFE China International Food Trade Show 2016

Dear Sir/madam,

FoodWeek/AgriTek Uzbekistan-2016

We would like to suggest you participation in the 21st International exhibition FoodWeek/AgriTek Uzbekistan'2016,September 28-30,Tashkent.
The exhibition consists of three directions.
FoodExpo - food industry
AgriTek - agriculture
PackTek - packaging 

FoodWeek & AgriTek is the oldest food exhibition in Uzbekistan.
This is the best place for business meetings with more than 5,000 professional visitors:suppliers,manufacturers and others in the sector of the food and agri industry of Uzbekistan