In order to prevent disease, enhance work ability, or promote overall health, consumers pay more attention to foods that can provide special effects for health.
Functional food is rapidly becoming a part of daily life. Last year, two thirds of adults tried to buy fortified foods, an increase of 17% over 2005 (MSI, 2007a); one third of young people aged 18-24 often drank energy drinks (Experian, 2007); and more than half (57%) of mothers of pre adolescent children bought organic food (MSI, 2007b).
Most Americans (69%) pursue a preventive lifestyle, while 27% pursue a therapeutic lifestyle. It's no surprise that sales of products that provide special benefits for health are growing explosively because they are easier to meet the individual needs of consumers.
In the 2006-2007 list of the most successful new brand "top 10 food / beverage leaders" provided by Information Resources Corporation, Jinbao soup's low sodium soup ranked first with annual sales of US $101 million (IRI, 2008a); Gatorade sports drinks ranked fourth, mainly consumed by early morning exercisers; fiber No.1 chewable snack bar of general mills can provide 35% of daily dietary fiber requirements, ranking fifth; Danone's danactive yogurt can help improve immunity, ranking seventh, and Activia light, another product Yogurt ranked ninth in the list because it contributes to the health of the digestive tract and provides less energy than traditional fermented foods.
Other foods in the top 10 of the list also contain health ingredients, such as 2nd place birds eye's steamfresh (a frozen vegetable that can be steamed in a bag), vault / vault zero daily soft drink No. 3, Heineken light beer No. 6, and Sara Lee heart, No. 8& Delicious) and PepsiCo Jazz soft drinks ranked 10th.
It's becoming more and more difficult to distinguish healthy food from traditional food, but what's exciting is that it will benefit the development of healthy food. Organic Bistro gourmet frozen meat balances the carbohydrate, fat and protein content of organic Bistro gourmet frozen meat. Rachel's "oddish" sour cheese claims to contain Ca, vitamin D, vitamin A, Omega -3, DHA and prebiotics, and has added exogenous flavors, such as red pomelo and lychee flavors.
From 2007 to 2010, the sales of functional foods are expected to increase from US $75 billion to US $109 billion (GBA, 2007). As the fastest growing part, the sales of energy drinks will reach 34 billion US dollars by 2010. In 2007, sales of functional foods in the United States were 29 billion US dollars.
In the United States, "low harm" products continue to dominate the health products market. Label trends in the United States reported product sales at food factories, pharmacies and wholesalers (excluding Wal Mart) at the end of the year (7 / 14 / 07), Among them, the sales volume of low-fat products increased by 1% to 14 billion US dollars; the sales of defatted products increased by 2% to reach 9.5 billion US dollars; the sales of lipid-lowering products increased by 4% to 8 billion US dollars; the products excluding special types of fat increased by 38% and the sales volume reached 8 billion US dollars. Low calorie food increased by 6% to $11 billion, sugar free food increased 6% to $5 billion, sugar free food increased 6% to $3 billion, low salt or low sodium food increased 3% to $11 billion, and salt free or sodium free food increased 1% to $4 billion (Lempert, 2007a).
According to the Food Marketing Association survey, one-third (36%) of shoppers try to reduce the risk of improving their health, 30% of them follow the advice of doctors, and 25% of them deal with specific situations by themselves. It may be surprising that young people aged 18-24 are more likely to pursue functional foods or drinks, mainly fortified bars, energy drinks or sports drinks, candy and smoothie (Mintel, 2006). At present, although the use of functional food decreases with age, older consumers still prefer to eat functional food regularly.
In 2015, there will be a qualitative leap in the growth of the market share of young people - those aged 18-24 will increase by 6%, those aged 25-34 will increase by 12%, and those aged 55-64 will increase by 35%. Therefore, functional food marketers need to develop unique products for these key consumer groups (Sloan, 2007a).
All in all, as Americans become more familiar with the benefits of functional foods, they most expect the successful introduction of composite functional foods.
The aura of a healthy family
Although more and more Americans are cooking / dining at home, 57% are striving to eat healthier, and two-thirds (68%) of families eat together at least five nights a week (FMIS, 2006), it is not easy to buy healthier home packaged convenience foods.
Only 8% of shoppers believe there are enough healthy packaged foods (FMIS, 2007). Since 1 / 3 of dinners use convenience food, the market potential of convenience food is huge (MSI, 2007c; acielsen, 2008). For example, frozen appetizers were the biggest beneficiaries of supermarkets at the end of last year (11 / 3 / 07), including the new low sodium salt family style appetizers from fantastic foods and vegetarian simmer soups from A.C. laroco and super food RX pizza by A.C. larocco.
Those in their 50s who grew up with the "basic 4" diet concept are most likely to cook dinner, which will greatly promote healthier side dishes and vegetable sales.
In the family, the diet of people with dietary restriction is more likely to affect other family members. Half (53%) of adults control their diet, of which 61% are due to their weight, 36% to control cholesterol, 22% to control blood sugar, 18% to control blood pressure and 14% to diabetes (Mintel, 2007a).
Products with healthy production technology are developing rapidly. Rosetto's all natural frozen steam'n eat wonton from Hans & heath group can be eaten in just a few minutes under microwave and contains no trans or hydrogenated fatty acids. The world's best brand of Kidz natural antibiotic free roasted chicken nuggets, each serving 10 grams of whole grain.
Families with infants and young children are also promoting a healthy diet. As the number of children under 6 years old will increase by 10% by 2015, it is a good time to promote healthy baby / baby food (Sloan, 2007a). DHA in bina DHA + baby food is good for brain and eye development, and some probiotics are also good for the digestive system. The world's best organic infant iron formula also contains DHA and Ara. Happy babies' new product, happy bellies, contains probiotics and DHA.
Designed for infants aged 6-30 months, first judge contains less than half the sugar content of ordinary organic juices. It is fortified with vitamins A, C, D and calcium, and is packaged in a western style bottle. R.W. Knudsen's sensible sipper is made up of 50% organic juice and 50% water. This overall mild drink comes in a mini juice bottle (4.3 oz). Volvo's y water is a new type of children's drink. Its bottle design is novel and can be used as a toy. It can be used in immune, bone strengthening, brain strengthening and muscle strengthening drinks of Y water.
In recent years, the sales volume of children's health food has exceeded that of ordinary children's food, with a ratio of 3:1 (IRI, 2006). Nearly half of the mothers (49%) are trying to control their children's caffeine intake, with 36%, 33%, 32%, 32%, 24%, 18% and 17% controlling their children's intake of sugar, synthetic sweeteners, trans fatty acids, high fructose corn syrup, sodium, synthetic pigments, and kalluri. Calcium, vitamin C, e, D and B groups, ω - 3, iron and folic acid were the nutrients that mothers hoped to provide their children (MSI, 2007d).
Twenty eight percent of parents admit to having overweight children, and one in eight overweight children may have two or more risk factors for heart disease. At present, in addition to caring about children's immunity and growth and development, mothers are also concerned about disease prevention in their children's life in the future. Therefore, they hope that children's health food can be more standardized.
