Wellness goes beyond the physical: NZMP tips total well-being and self-care among its trends to watch

02 Apr 2019 --- Wellness of the mind, body and soul will become a more common concept that consumers adhere to. This consumer dynamic will evolve the narrative surrounding personalized health and nutrition from physical to that of lifestyle-based health. This is according to Roshena De Leon, Global Insights Manager at NZMP, Fonterra’s B2B dairy ingredients business. This increasingly holistic and mindful approach offers formulators and suppliers a raft of NPD opportunities. Key in this aspect will be the concept of “self-care,” she notes.

This holistic approach is reflected in Innova Market Insights’ no. 6 trend for 2019: “Eating for Me.” This indicates that consumers are approaching their health and nutrition in a holistic sense, with diets that can be personalized and shaped to each individual. 2019 may be the year that dieters seek more comprehensive solutions for health, beyond merely cutting calories and counting kilograms.

Her predictions are part of NZMP’s 2019 top five trends for the dairy industry, which also clearly list digestive health and comfort as key areas with potential.

“More and more we will see a move towards consumers being mindful of their overall health,” De Leon tells NutritionInsight. Be it cutting down on sugar intake, supporting sustainably sourced products, consuming more protein, or adopting a plant-based diet – the aim will not be simply to stay healthy but to be able to lead the lifestyle that one desires. 

“And this will be an important component of the narrative that the food and beverage industry tells consumers. Communicating and positioning products on demographics such as age and gender will increasingly be less relevant,” she adds.

In line with this trend, we can expect to see more collaboration opportunities between previously seemingly disconnected or independent categories – foods and gadgets, apparel and beverages, food keepers and formula, the list goes on. “There will also be more opportunities to cross-sell and cross-promote tied by a common goal of helping consumers achieve total wellness,” according to De Leon.

Self-care is a concept that will also become more common, she says.

Innovation opportunities
In terms of exciting R&D or product development opportunities, De Leon clearly highlights functional benefits beyond physical wellbeing. These include:

• Cognition: This will include being mentally sharp as well as products that talk about sleep and relaxation, as consumers live more stressful and fast-paced lifestyles. Dairy in many cultures is already being taken before sleep to wind down in the evening. There will be an opportunity to communicate this overtly as one of dairy’s functionalities.  Brain health claims in food and beverage launches are on the rise, with more than twice as many products (excluding infant nutrition) reported with a brain health claim in 2017 than in 2013, Innova Market Insights data shows.
• Beauty: The concept of beauty through food and beverages will become increasingly common. The industry can take inspiration from beauty, and this will include highlighting benefits of dairy to skin, nails and anti-aging.  

Linking beauty and nutrition is not a new concept in many Asian countries and the western markets can take inspiration from the region in developing products in this space. This goes not just for dairy, but for other ingredients such as collagen as well.

Protein remains the hero ingredient Roshena De Leon, Global Insights Manager at NZMP, Fonterra’s B2B dairy ingredients business.
Healthy aging is a key talking point in this trend, but there is an aspect of prevention over cure. 

“It is key not to address ailments that creep in as people get older but more to prolong the middle age to allow consumers to continue to live their current lifestyles longer,” De Leon notes.

Consumers will continue to emphasize the combination of a healthy diet and active lifestyle in achieving total wellness, and protein will be the main ingredient to support it following its heritage in sports nutrition. “Protein as a support to active living will [continue to] be relevant across a broad range of consumers, from kids (due to rising obesity issues particularly among children), image-conscious youth, women, as well as the elderly,” she says. 

Indeed, the demographic for healthy aging products is shifting and, according to industry experts, this is a trend that will only expand in 2019. Bone and joint health, as well as cognition, are salient categories for aging well. Innova Markets Insights data show that new product launches between 2013 and 2018 with an energy and alertness claim increased by 19 percent, while bone health claims grew by 17 percent. For consumers in 2019, aging well starts young. 

Digestive health comes to the fore
Digestive wellness has a broad appeal across consumers of different ages. The growing body of research on aspects such as the gut-brain axis will most likely only enhance this appeal. With the expanding interest in digestive health, De Leon says there will be opportunities to introduce new formats as well as a growing range of positioning stories. The key to marketing success is having stories that strongly link to recognizable benefits.  

“The concept of food as medicine and banking on the natural goodness of certain food ingredients continues, with digestive health taking much of the spotlight this year,” she says. 

Beyond the growth of digestive health claims, more interesting to watch is how the narrative around digestive health will evolve. 

The company anticipates a progression from digestive comfort to how overall wellness starts from the gut, covering a wide range of benefits from weight management, to immunity, to beauty and brain health. Moreover, the interest that digestive health gets will also lead to different paths to making this claim. “This will include highlighting ingredients like kombucha, probiotics, fiber, plants, or A2 dairy or processing, such as fermentation,” she says.  

Gut-health products are increasingly infiltrating mainstream offerings and innovative NPD that utilizes gut-health ingredients is growing. Only last month, Coca-Cola debuted Odwalla’s Smoobucha in stores across the US. The beverage fuses smoothies and kombucha – an ancient Chinese fermented tea drink – creating a taste that hopes to entice consumers who may be wary of the “boldness” of the kombucha flavor. 

The company lists several further ways to innovate in digestive wellness. This can include capitalizing on known ingredients in digestive wellness: probiotics, probiotics, polyphenols and fiber. 

“Dairy leads in the probiotics category, but there will be opportunities in other categories moving forward as innovation extends beyond dairy to address the growing needs of consumers to address digestive wellness through everyday food and beverages,” she says. 

For example, providing “free from” options: Lactose-free, gluten-free, A2, but taking the angle of free-from for overall health and not just to address intolerance. 

“For example, around one in two consumers who purchase lactose-free products are consuming them because they perceive them to healthier, and not because they are allergic,” De Leon notes. Meanwhile, highlighting manufacturing processes that are linked to digestive health, such as fermentation, can also appeal to the market.

There is certainly ample space of NPD on a digestive health platform. Innova Market Insights has tipped “A Fresh Look at Fiber” to be a key trend this year. According to a consumer survey (2018) conducted by Innova Market Insights, 44 percent of US consumer are increasing their consumption of fiber, with 33 percent of UK consumers doing so. At the same time, 21 percent average annual growth has been reported in new product launches carrying a fiber claim.

Edited by Lucy Gunn