Functional foods go one step beyond basic nutrition - providing high levels of antioxidants and vitamins for specific physical or mental health benefits - and, as such, have been touted as the next big thing for increasingly health-conscious consumers. UK shoppers are looking out for what they perceive as good for them and, with fruit and vegetables ticking all the right boxes, this presents massive potential for the industry. So how can the fresh produce sector capitalise on the functional food trend and build on it in the long term?
A raft of health and wellbeing trends have swept across the UK in the last five years and, within this short time, succeeded in hitting the mainstream.
Fresh produce provides its own unique combination of health-giving properties and the opportunities for positioning fruit and vegetables as health products have never been greater, says Professor David Hughes from Imperial College London, who has been a non-executive director of KG Growers Ltd for 12 years. “Functional foods, superfoods and neutraceuticals are all labels for products that are perceived to have high or added health benefits,” he says. “But all foods have functionality. Fresh produce is at an advantage because it is intrinsically good for you and, at the moment, foods that are perceived as fresh and natural are thought of as being the best for you.”
The increasing numbers of consumers striving to adopt healthier eating habits are actively seeking nutrient-rich food and drink, leading to increased sales of functional foods. The move towards so-called “positive nutrition”, which has seen shoppers looking to make healthier choices, is making its presence felt with UK consumers. It is estimated that, by 2011, the functional food and drink market in Europe and the US will be almost double that of 2001.
The fresh produce industry potentially stands to gain from this predicted boom. Products that have already explicitly aligned themselves to good health have already shown massive growth. The berry sector, in particular, has emerged as a star category when it comes to marketing soft fruit as a functional food, with trade body British Summer Fruits leading the way in PR activities aimed at the national media. A non-stop drip-feed of information helped propel blueberries into the spotlight once the awareness campaign gained momentum and, despite superfood claims from more than 100 different products, the blueberry sub-category is still held up as a model and benchmark.
All indications show that the functional food trend is gaining momentum. IGD research from 2007 showed that nearly one in five of 1,000 shoppers surveyed said that added health benefits would most make them think of the products as a “premium” line. A total of 5,413 European and US consumers were surveyed by Datamonitor and 65 per cent said they were no longer concerned solely with reducing food intake or moderating consumption, but in foods offering specific health benefits beyond basic nutrition. More than half claimed they were taking more active steps to eat and drink healthily.
The functional food trend, with its spin-off concepts and far-reaching ideas, has made for a health-conscious umbrella under which the fresh produce industry needs to position itself. Individual markets for beauty foods, anti-stress foods and food for juniors are all taking shape and, according to Hughes, are the ones to watch out for in the near future and ones that the fresh produce industry can build on.
The health and well-being mega-trend is an important one for the industry to pick up on. “All consumers are concerned about their health to some extent, and the government is interested because of the clear costs that health problems, such as obesity, have for the healthcare system,” Hughes says. “Food companies have an interest, particularly where they have a product that fits into the trend - and this is where the fresh produce industry comes in.
“Consumers have signed up to the idea that fruit and vegetables are good for you, so we do not have to set about changing their views - we just have to get behind and push,” he says.
“But we have to see how we can get products to meet all the other requirements.”
Fresh produce as functional food still has to meet wide-ranging criteria in order to engage consumer attention. “Consumers ask themselves if they like the taste and the way it looks, whether it is presented to them in a form that meets their lifestyle requirements and is convenient for them and, of course, they ask whether they can afford it or if it is the price they expect it to be,” says Hughes. “The health aspect is a bonus in the mainstream market.”
The best way forward is to increase consumer awareness of food functionality. The responsibility for raising awareness should be laid on those that have the most to gain from the functional food trend, says Hughes, but he acknowledges that the task should be shared by all interested parties. “Those that have the most to gain from consumer awareness of health and well-being should carry disproportionate responsibility for raising it,” he says. “As an industry, we say our margins are too small and we expect consumers to pick up the product regardless, but that is not good enough, is it?”
The fresh produce industry must be careful to position its offer as a ‘life’ product rather than a ‘death’ product, Hughes warns, making sure to emphasise positive and aspirational messages about vitality, beauty and sex, rather than continuing with claims based around the prevention of cancer or heart disease. “The most difficult health benefits to sell are linked to terminal illnesses and death because the majority of consumers cannot relate to this, or do not know they have any problems - such as cholesterol - or will not admit it, even to themselves,” he says. “It is far better to position fruit and vegetables as quintessential life foods and tell consumers that increasing their consumption will, ultimately, give them better control of their life.
“If you look at some of the really big companies, like Danone and the way it has promoted its probiotic products, the claims it has made are really soft - the consumer is told that they will feel better in themselves,” says Hughes. “This is in line with what the fresh produce industry should do.”
The national media is a crucial tool in the continuation of the functional food trend, and fuel is needed to keep up the momentum. “It is essential to monitor emerging research on the benefits of specific fruit and vegetables on health and well-being and feed it to the media,” says Hughes. “The fresh produce industry, in general, does not have the depth of pocket to carry out primary research or spend on national advertising, however, it does have the ability to scour the world and see what information is available and see that this released to the media.”
But the legitimacy of health claims has come under closer scrutiny and the food industry will have to promote functional foods with caution. The European Commission has started clamping down on bogus superfood claims and has tightened regulations to question the legitimacy of claims. The European nutrition and health claims regulation, which came into force in July 2007, means that no food or beverage product will be allowed to be labelled under vague or generic terms, such as “good for your heart”, “helps lower cholesterol”, or branded as a “superfood” without scientific backing.
“It will be quite tricky to navigate going forward,” says Julian Hunt, from the Food and Drink Federation. “Three or four years ago, Tesco was pulled up by Trading Standards under the old scheme, for promoting its 5 A DAY display as a preventative to cancer. The new regulation may not be the greatest legislation ever drafted, but it will create a level playing field on the market.”
The EU is moving towards companies having to show research evidence both for generic claims and for the portion needed to get the benefit claimed and, according to Hughes, the high costs involved could push the biggest science-claim products into the hands of the largest food companies. “This will make it more challenging for the fresh produce industry to capitalise on the health and well-being trend,” he says. “A lot of time and very deep pockets are needed to take products and concepts all the way to market.”
But this has not stopped research on this trend being undertaken across the fresh produce industry, in many parts of the world.
Hazera Genetics invests 10-15 per cent of its R&D budget on projects looking at functionality and health, and has a number of projects and products in the pipeline. The Israel-based seed breeder launched a high-lycopene tomato with three times the normal level of the nutrient in February last year, as part of its Lifestyle range. The ACE pepper, with triple or in some cases four times the amount of vitamins A, C and E as a normal pepper, has been introduced to growers and is expected to hit the market in 2009. An initiative on melons and beta-carotene is expected to yield results in three years.
“Consumers will not buy a healthier tomato just because it is healthier - they will only pick it up if it looks and tastes good,” says Dr Alon Haberfeld, tomato product manager at Hazera. “This is why we need to combine functionality with appearance and taste.
“The first time we tried to a launch high-lycopene cherry tomato a few years back, we failed because the product had a poor taste. But the new generation of varieties that we have been able to bring to market taste like normal tomatoes, only they have higher lycopene, and we are working with suppliers and retailers to promote it.
“We believe we are not far off from a successful launch of the high-vitamin peppers, but it is likely to take a few more years before the high-lycopene tomatoes catch on, as there is still limited understanding among consumers about what lycopene is.”
The turnover gleaned from functional products is yet to match the investment, Haberfeld says, but he is confident that this will change in the future, as the market continues to grow and progress is made on the different varieties.
New Zealand-based HortResearch is focusing on three major areas of the functional food concept, looking into the synergies in fruit and vegetable mixes that have the most health benefits and the combination of fresh produce, as a prebiotic, with dairy, as a probiotic, as well as studies on the effects that fruit and vegetables have on mood, and on the mechanisms that cause fresh produce to have a positive impact on the body.
Greg Mann, general manager for business development at HortResearch, stresses that it is crucial to keep the consumer at the forefront of all research and present findings to them in a way that they can easily understand.
“We want to capitalise on the one + one = three effect that fruit and vegetables can have when they are eaten in the right combination and you can get more benefits from a mix than you would from eating products on their own,” he says. “This could have an impact on the fresh prepared sector.
“The programme we have on mood food, which is still at the research stage, reflects the fact that consumers are increasingly looking for a more short term and obvious gains from their food.”
Mann predicts that proprietary varieties or those with controlled production stand to gain from studies on health benefits and that, in the near future, there will be more research done on commodity fruit and vegetables, rather than just high-margin lines.
The next phase of this trend will be neutraceuticals, marketed as food for beauty, and satiety, or the feeling of fullness, predicts Hunt, and both concepts could present opportunities for the fresh produce sector.
But the future prosperity of the functional food trend, in terms of the fresh produce industry, lies in the support of the sector. “We need to get as much leverage as we can from 5 A DAY and the Eat in Colour campaigns, and continue to keep up the profile of fruit and vegetables in the media,” says Hughes. “I would like to see as much co-ordinated effort as possible, and growers and suppliers talking to seed breeders to see what they are cooking up.
“The fresh produce industry is emerging from the swamp and we are just about on our legs, but about 10km away there are men and women in suits, from the Danones and Unilevers of this world, with a profound understanding of consumer requirements,” he adds. “We have to be more targeted in our approach, but there is along way to go.”
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