Global healthy foods to hit $1 trillion in 2017: Report
Ewa Hudson, global head of health and wellness research, presented the data recently at conference and told us better tasting foods, recession-driven concerns to avoid public healthcare costs, and increasing knowledge about foodstuffs, was driving the growth.
“Prevention is the way forward, this is something that has moved beyond being fad or fashion, it is a social and business reality and is why the healthy foods industry outperforms the mainstream food industry,” she told us.
“It is why 30% of food companies are invested in healthy foods.”
Hudson added the figures were buoyed by extraordinary emerging economy growth with China’s healthy foods sector adding €8.5bn in 2011 alone; Brazil’s €3bn.
“Health and wellness is going mainstream. The fact you can access a lot of these foods in more convenient formats is a factor too. For instance ready-to-drink (RTD) green tea is overtaking green tea in sales.”
“Before health and wellness was premium but now these products are entering the mass market. They have more deeply penetrated societies.”
Euromonitor data found the health and wellness (H&W) drinks market world grow at about 7.5% year-on –year until 2016, compared to about 6.75% for normal beverages. Healthy beverages would be worth about $400bn (€308bn) compared to about $500bn (€385bn).
Growth rates were similar in packaged foods, although healthy foods only accounted for $550bn (€4242bn) compared to about $2400bn (€1850bn) for regular foods.
Hudson noted the top health and wellness brands were Diet Coke, Gatorade, Red Bull, Activia, Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Pepsi, Tropicana, Wahaha, Yakult and Trident. Gatorade and Red Bull had the fastest absolute growth.
Other fast-growing economies included (in order) Russia, the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Indonesia, the UK, India, Canada, Germany, Australia, Colombia, South Korea, France, Italy and Saudi Arabia.
