FMCG Innovations and Trends by Sophia Nadur

It’s #WorldObesityDay today. 2/3 of Britons are overweight or obese, up from 1/2 just 20 years ago. I am one of those statistics but am doing my best to change things, for me and for communities here and abroad. A research physician & I invested our life savings to develop a truly healthier drink to help wean us off our sugar habit. It’s better than virtually all of the new drinks offered by big companies to retailers.  WATCH this 1 min World Obesity Day VIDEO However, a big UK supermarket told us yesterday that unless we spent £££££s with them, we would not be stocked. Despite all the promises made to be more responsible, retailers are continuing to fill shelves with certain food & drink, simply because big companies have deeper pockets. These restrictive practices happen not just in the UK but all over the world.  This plea is not about a drink I want to promote. There will be other startups with better products too. How much money do retailers, manufactu...

Like much of the developed world, t he UK has an obesity problem . 60% of the population is overweight or obese from eating too much and exercising too little. Reducing portion sizes a proven intervention that changes health behaviour and helps to reduce obesity There have been numerous studies since the early 1990s that show reducing  portion sizes  of the food & drink we consume would help reverse the obesity epidemic. BBC health editor,  James Gallagher , reported in 2015 [ link ] the findings of research based on 6,711 people that took part in a wide range of clinical trials. Professor  Gareth Hollands  (among others) found that eliminating " large portions could cut up to 279 calories a day out of people's diets " [ link ].... equivalent to an extra kg of fat to contend with every month. Research in the British Medical Journal states that  reducing portion sizes  becomes easier when there is availability of smaller pack sizes  ...

The promotion of gluten-free diets among people without celiac disease should NOT be encouraged , a long-term prospective cohort study reports. ( Link ) The British Medical Journal reported in May 2017 findings from health research conducted on 100,000 people over a 15+ year period. Professor Benjamin Lebwohl et al.'s study had as its objective " to examine the association of long term intake of gluten with the development of incident coronary heart disease ". The research findings concluded in part with this statement: " .....the avoidance of gluten may result in reduced consumption of beneficial whole grains, which may affect cardiovascular risk. The promotion of gluten-free diets among people without celiac disease should not be encouraged." Wheat and other whole grain food have been a staple in the human diet for thousands of years. However, gluten, a storage protein in wheat, rye, and barley, triggers inflammation and intestinal damage in people ...

(c) 2012 Convergence Alimentaire blog image I cut my FMCG marketing teeth at Unilever and ended my full-time global food & drink industry career at Kraft/Mondelez. I now run a healthier drinks startup business alongside a global innovation consultancy where I work as an "extrapreneur" supporting companies wanting to remake their portfolios to better fit emerging consumer needs for healthier products......so I am perhaps in a unique position to give a point of view.  If you are Dutch or British, you feel closer culturally to Unilever and few folks living here in the UK will have forgotten Kraft's poor treatment of people & assets post Cadbury's acquisition. However, the reality is that the vision and values of both companies are not so dissimilar and both are facing the same fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour & needs in relation to "big FMCG/CPG" brands in both developed and the "developing" world. Is Warren Buffett (a Kr...

"Consumers want to eat more healthfully, but they can't do it alone. They need help from food & drink manufacturers to formulate products with good-for-you ingredients. They need help from retailers to stock right-priced healthful assortments."  Nielsen 2016 Global Health and Ingredient Sentiment Survey. In North America, " Groundhog Day " is the day when the groundhog is said to come out of its burrow at the end of hibernation. If the animal sees its shadow—i.e. if the weather is sunny—it goes back into its hole, which signals 6 weeks more of winter weather. If it's cloudy and he doesn't see his shadow, spring is not far away! "Groundhog Day" has another, more colloquial, meaning. When someone says " It's like Groundhog Day " today, they mean the day is one in which people say the same things and do the same things over and over. I had a " Groundhog Day " moment earlier this week while waiting on a train ...