Hot Topics-Food for Thought

By Patti Zarling, FOOD DIVE

Published June 14, 2018

Brief

• Nielsen said consumers look for transparency in three key attributes when it comes to making food purchases in the fast-moving consumer goods arena: sustainability, processing claims (such as organic or natural) and ingredients. With access to a lot of information, shoppers can be selective and look for products and services that meet their specific needs.

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NOTE:  The West Michigan Shoreline Food Processing Initiative is launching a “hot topic” discussion theme to its Stakeholder Briefings entitled “Food for Thought.”   The first topic will be discussed at the June 21 stakeholder briefing and focus on “Food Processing for Better Health.” Digital daily news letter FOOD DIVE (https://www.fooddive.com/) has a series of articles on this topic in their May 17 daily newsletter.   The following is one of the articles.  

FOOD DIVE

Megan Poinski, Author

Larger trends such as healthy eating, clean labels and non-GMO items give the segment a boost.

When Enjoy Life Foods was founded 17 years ago, their sweets and snack products — which are all free of the United States’ top eight allergens — were seen as niche items.

Today, Enjoy Life is completely mainstream. Consumers can find the Mondelez-owned company’s cookies and bars in most regular stores. And it is certainly not alone in its segment. Several new and old CPG brands are jumping on the allergy-friendly foods train.

“Today, everyone thinks we were a genius. We weren’t,” Enjoy Life’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Joel Warady told Food Dive. “We saw the statistics and we just kept pushing the category. …We’re happy there’s competition out there because for years, we were #1 in a category that didn’t exist.”

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