Natural Foods

According to the latest review from the Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD) 23% of all food and drink launches in 2008 had Natural claims. This is a nine percent increase from 2007. This is the most frequent of all claims on new foods and drinks. These claims included the terms; all Natural, wholegrain, organic and no additives / preservatives.

This demonstrates that manufacturers currently believe that consumers are looking for “natural’ foods and are developing products to meet this expectation. This can create potential food safety issues with specific processing methods or packaging required to ensure that any preservative removal does not affect food safety. This will most likely also require Food or Packaging Technologists to be involved in the Product Development process.

Convenience claims in any form made up only 12% of all the 2008 new food and drink claims, showing that “Natural” is still the major selling point, and is expected to continue by most in the food industry for some time to come.

Claims for “Plus” (eg added vitamins and minerals) took a significant fall in the 2008 Mintel GNPD review going down by 20% since the last review of 2007 launches. Only five percent of all 2008 food and drink launches in 2008 had any “Plus” type claims.

Interestingly, with the increasing awareness and understanding of environmental impacts and issues, only five percent of the new food and drink launches in 2008 had ethical or environmental claims.