The new rules of healthy: what consumers want now

Food Manufacture’s ‘Are you ready for the healthy consumer’ webinar saw leading industry voices across F&B and nutrition come together to explore the biggest trends shaping today’s health-conscious consumers.

In an exclusive presentation, Flora Zwolinski, insight lead at Lumina Intelligence, offered an in-depth analysis of what’s trending in health and where the category is heading next.

Kicking the talk off, she led viewers through the recent evolution of health trends; from the low fat, low carb, calorie-controlled focus of the 90s; to the noughties plant-based boom; to more recent trends including CBD, minimally processed foods, nutrient dense, and GLP-1s.

“UK consumers are becoming increasingly more health led,” Zwolinski said, showing Lumina Intelligence figures that outlined the steady growth of people (+2.8pp) describing themselves as ‘very health led’ over the last five years.

While the data showed a minor dip in 2023 during the height of the cost-of-living crisis, health has “bounced back harder and faster than before”.

As illustrated by Zwolinski’s timeline shown during the session, health has been a consistent trend, but its meaning has evolved. Recent data from Lumina research found that fruit and veg, water, and variety are currently how consumers are defining health.

Whilst in years gone by we would have likely seen responses that cited restrictive behaviours, today’s consumers are more focused on what they’re getting from their food.

As Zwolinski explained: We’re very much in an era of functional foods, with the UK public prioritising options which make health easy.

She added: “76% of consumers are interested in functional ingredients, and the same amount are actually buying foods already with some sort of added benefit – be that protein, fibre, vitamins or minerals.”

This had led to a wealth of different product innovation which has blurred the lines between health and treat – for example Pepsi’s prebiotic cola.

Popular functionality is being translated through vitamin-, fibre-, mineral-rich ingredients. However, Zwolinski also points to more emerging ingredients such as seaweed-based nutrients (fucoidan, iodine), as well as mushrooms (lion’s mane, chaga), adaptogens (ashwagandha, reishi), and nootropics (ginkgo biloba, creatine) as interesting areas to watch.

The soft drinks market has been quick off the mark, with examples on the market including Juni’s lemon iced tea with adaptogens, Smiling Wolf’s low alcoholic G&T with nootropics and vitamins, and Oomee’s matcha lemon mint drink with ‘seabiotics’.

While debates are ongoing around health claims and scientific research, restrictions and question marks haven’t stopped brands from innovating, added Zwolinski.

At the same time, conversations around UPFs have continued to affect the sector, and polarised conversations around this topic highlight a contradiction in trends: consumers seeking added functionality food and drink which is often inherently linked to some level of processing.

In a study conducted by Lumina Intelligence, consumers were given a list of foods and asked to flag them as UPF or not. Ready to eat foods and ready meals were most likely to be deemed UPFs, but only around 25-30% of respondents classed chocolate biscuits as UPFs.

“I’m sure there are ‘ultra processed free’ chocolate biscuits, but the vast majority are UPF,” said Zwolinski, as she underscored the confusion.

Lumina’s research shows more than half (51%) of UK consumers claim to avoid at least some, if not all UPFs; with 46% saying their views over UPFs have changed in the past year.

“Consumers want these added benefits, but they want them to be as minimally processed as possible. But also there’s a big lack of understanding as to what ultra processed food actually is,” Zwolinski added.

This polarisation has been helping to keep the UPF conversation alive, according to Angie Jefferson, strategic projects manager at the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF).

She cited a recent study carried out by the UK Research and Innovation Organisation that shows the public is increasingly familiar with the term and want to know more about UPFs – with evidence backed by science.

Right now, however, most of that research is observational.

As Jefferson explained, current studies don’t demonstrate cause and effect. They also use different definitions, which means you can’t actually compare the results that are emerging.

“We need large, well-funded, long term, randomised controlled trials to show us cause and effect - and that is going to take years. So the debate is going to rumble on.”

Lauren Woodley, head of nutrition and sensory science at Nomad Foods, agreed there is a lack of harmony, but believes we’re “getting closer to a legal definition” which she predicts will focus far more on specific ingredients than anything else.

In the meantime, what we do have is “clear evidence that eating large amounts of foods that are high in fat, sugar, salt, and low in fibre do have implications and poor health outcomes” added Jefferson.

She continued: “If we actually ate the Eat Well Diet […] it would solve quite a few of our problems […] While it’s [UPF] a debate and while it’s polarised, we can’t just sit on our laurels and wait for a definitive answer.”

Nutrient dense - what does that even mean?

We’re also seeing another term bandied about – so-called ‘nutrient dense’.

Retailers have been quick to respond to the rapid emergence of weight loss drugs, with almost 5% of UK adults now taking GLP-1s, rolling out ‘nutrient dense’ labelled options.

But as Jefferson said, in the absence of a legal definition on nutrient density, applying it onto a food label is “potentially problematic”.

She elaborated: “It would be seen as a generic health claim, which means that if nutrient dense appears on a label it will need to have at least one, probably more, supporting health claims. It’s not been tested legally, so is one health claim enough? Two? Three? Four?”

In terms of GLP-1s’ impact on food producers, Jon Walsh, co-founder and CEO of Bio&Me, believes that it’ll be a positive shift; with general public health improving and those operating in the healthier landscape benefitting.

“I think this can be a good movement in terms of people making healthier, higher quality choices,” he said.

But as Zwolinski noted in her presentation, it’ll be the manufacturers and brands who understand the different drivers within the GLP-1 community that win.

“You can’t be thinking about a GLP-1 user as one homogeneous group who all behave the same and can all be targeted the same,” she explained. “There are different people and demographics using this medication who do need to be targeted and thought about differently.”

For more insights and to listen to the webinar in full, click here.