Create energy boosters that consumers love
Create energy boosters that consumers love
Feel good!
One of the four main AGRANA Fruit global consumer trends for 2023 is ‘feel good’: a proactive, positive, and preventative health approach, which has already been highlighted in our last trendblog article about 2023 global consumer trends.
Why this trend is called ‘feel good’ is because mental and emotional wellbeing are at center stage of health nowadays. We don’t just want to feel well, we are going further than that by feeling good, which means feeling happy in addition to being healthy. Consumers adopt a mindful diet and lifestyle choices to nourish their bodies and minds and attain sustained health, longevity, and a happy life.
To accomplish this, consumers often turn to functional foods as one of the building blocks. According to the European Food Safety Authority, functional foods have potential positive health effects on one or more target functions in the body beyond basic nutrition.
Sharpen my mind!
One functional health area currently trending is ‘sharpen my mind’, which means reducing stress and boosting energy, focus and mental clarity, and performance. Energy management and cognitive performance are top-of-mind for many consumers these days: Across Italy, Poland, France, and Spain, more than 50% of consumers have been looking for ways to boost their energy levels since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, maintaining energy levels has become a priority for 41% of US adults (Source: Mintel).
Around 7% of all food and beverage launches globally since 2019 have a functional claim, of which energy is the top claim and dairy is the top product category with functional claims (Source: Mintel).
A common way to achieve an energy positioning is by means of mineral and vitamin fortification. Roughly one third of all food & beverage launches with an energy claim use this approach (Source: Mintel). Micronutrients such as iron, B vitamins or vitamin A, C, and E are frequently used as ingredients. Another route followed is to use botanical ingredients like ginseng, green tea, matcha, curcuma, maca, turmeric, or ginger among others for the energy positioning. Often these two approaches are also combined. Many brands add further benefits such as mental clarity, mood boosting, focus enhancement, or stress management to the product positioning.
That is why we have developed an energy concept suitable for dairy applications, where we took inspiration from the beverage and snack categories and created relevant and tasty combinations for yogurt applications. With our knowledge and expertise in creating functional preparations, we have perfectly paired fruits with functional ingredients like vitamins, minerals, and botanicals to both stimulate taste buds and to boost energy levels and mental performance throughout the day.
Check out some of the energy-boosting creations:
Looking into the future
Functional foods are continuing to gain traction, but we can already see the next long-term development in the direction of personalized food and precision nutrition. Food that is fully customized to your DNA and hence your individual needs is already reality and will gain more traction in future.
According to Harvard School of Public Health, precision nutrition can be used to determine the most effective eating plan to prevent or treat disease. At AGRANA Fruit, we have taken on the challenge of innovating fruit with a 3D food printer to create enjoyable and healthy food for people suffering from dysphagia, an often-overlooked target group estimated to be around ten million people in Europe alone. Together with our partner hospital, we are developing recipes for 3D printed food to create more diversity and eating experience enjoyment for people with swallowing difficulties.
Hungry for more?
Interested in learning more about our energy yogurt concept or discovering the full range of products available for the application in yogurt? Or are you curious about our innovation project with a 3D food printer? Contact us for a customized presentation tailored to your needs!
Our innovation and marketing experts around the world are eager to co-create the next ‘feel good’ solution together with you!
