Nutritional Choices: Consumers and Governments

Delivery

This report comes in PPT.

Key findings

Consumers’ focus has shifted from less healthy ingredients to specific positive nutrients

Consumers’ perception of healthy food is evolving in a way that a reduction in less healthy ingredients from the product recipes is not enough on its own. In line with the adoption of a more holistic approaches by consumers, nutrients providing specific health benefits, such as protein and fibre, are increasingly getting traction in consumers’ food choices.

Daily per capita purchasing of less healthy ingredients has increased, driven mainly by developed regions

Despite negative publicity and increasing consumer awareness, per capita per day purchasing of sugar and salt in packaged food increased over the review period and exceeded the daily recommended amount, especially in developed countries, where packaged food sales are high, in line with high rates of urbanisation.

The surge in non-communicable diseases has led governments to take action regarding the food industry

Non-communicable diseases, such as obesity and heart disease, have increased around the globe, and poor diets in terms of nutrition quality are seen as one of the main contributors to this escalating issue. As a result, authorities have developed regulations mostly targeting highly processed packaged food products that are high in salt/fat/sugar, as well as guidelines recommending the correct daily intake of key nutrients in order to improve public health.

There are positive signs in terms of a willingness among key players to comply with front-of-pack labelling schemes

In response to the measures taken by the governments, such as front-of-pack labelling (FOP), many key players in the food industry have reformulated their signature brands to better comply with the restrictions and score higher in the rankings of nutrition profiling schemes, such as Nutri-Score in Europe.