Marketing Condition-Specific Functional Foods (Proactive Consumers Seek Condition-Specific Functional Foods)

Healthy eating has become the topic of public health campaigns, the subject of intense scientific and consumer debate, and an integral factor to food marketing. Consumers, both shaping and being shaped by this activist environment, are demanding more from their foods. Some insist foods be sustainably grown, local and fresh. Others expect foods to be nutritionally avant-garde. The common denominator is consumers are increasingly proactive in defining what they want from what they eat.

Many consumers are approaching foods and beverages as tools for boosting their state of health and quality of life. Foods and beverages with active components that bestow health and well-being beyond nutrition are a global phenomenon; for decades, consumers in Japan and Europe have embraced products that North Americans are now turning to in a big way. Health and wellness are increasingly being commercialized and commoditized into foods.

Food and diet have even come to occupy a focal position in the prevention and treatment of many chronic diseases. The current media focus on obesity and its effects—and on the responsibility of packaged foods companies, restaurants and institutions such as schools and hospitals to feature healthier fare more prominently—is spurring consumers to re-evaluate health, nutrition and lifestyle choices.

A graying America is also attuned to how diet and food choices can affect aging and well-being. Instead of thinking of nuts or berries as simple snacks, for example, baby boomers and seniors are approaching them as weapons against the deleterious effects of aging, such the inflammation that contributes to Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis. Moreover, as the complex effects of nutrition on brain function and the health of the central nervous system receive overdue attention, consumers are making connections between the foods they eat and their psychological states and conditions.

In this context, consumers are honing in on superfoods, superfruits and other key ingredients that promise condition-specific benefits:

• Berries, targeting infection
• Fish and omega-3 fatty acids, targeting heart disease and the central nervous system
• Fruit, giving that energy boost
• Green tea and antioxidants, targeting heart disease and cancer
• Leafy vegetables, targeting different cancers
• Plant sterols and stanols, targeting high cholesterol
• Probiotics and prebiotics, targeting gut health
• Soy, targeting bone health and osteoporosis
• Whole grains, targeting cardiovascular disease, cancer and high cholesterol

Consumer interest in health and need for healthier food choices will inevitably continue to develop and evolve, offering emerging opportunities for new product development and marketing.

Of course, product developers face scientific and technical challenges when reformulating products to give them distinct nutritional profiles. To make a food product healthier, either by reducing its fat or cholesterol content or by adding such healthy ingredients as fruit, nuts, omega-3 or lycopene, researchers often must completely reformulate the product. Another challenge is achieving the desired texture, taste and shelf-life characteristics while introducing a minimal amount of saturates and omitting artificial trans fats.

At the same time, as food formulators and marketers push the envelope, manufacturers must position their products to compete with an expanding and even bewildering array of novel competitors. For example, while manufacturers have been making cereals with flaxseed for several years, consumers can now find long-chain omega-3 in products such as milk (one of the original fortified foods) and soymilk. Nutrition-oriented consumers are adventurous to the benefit of new product introduction but to the detriment of product loyalty. According to Summer 2008 national survey data from Simmons Market Research Bureau, adults strongly inclined to try new nutritional foods over-index as consumers of products ranging from antioxidant supplements (at an index of 193, or nearly twice the national norm) and energy drinks (index of 171) to drinkable yogurt (index of 181) and tofu (index of 161). One size won’t fit all, but there are many emerging niches to be profitably filled.