Talking to FoodNavigator, senior trends consultant at Mintel Richard Cope said:
“Companies have lost their power forever. Today hiding any information away from the consumers would be seen as very suspicious...Consumers are already embracing apps that scrutinise a product’s environmental credentials, and we expect this concept to grow in the food and beverages market."
He suggested that apps that analysed product quality could be a real hit in 2015.
“There is a very interesting app in Italy called ‘Salumi’. As Italians eat for pleasure they do care about quality and this app helps identify the meat’s quality,” he said.
In France, the founders of www.MesGoûts.fr aimed to provide more control over what we eat. The free app offers information on quality, nutritional value, origin, environment, price, ethics/social, and ratings from other users on over 20,000 products available in France. Since its launch two years ago, the app has had more than 30,000 downloads.
The power of incentives
According to Cope, other strong trends could be apps with a charitable dimension or those that reward users for reaching their goals.
“The most interesting app I came across recently was Food Tweaks it the US, but I’m not sure it will come to Europe as well. It is about cutting calories from your diet and if you reach your goal the app helps people in need through food bank.”
He added: “Sense of reward appeals to your ego, your pride, sense of community. Apps can tap into that by giving you a reward for reaching your targets. The developers need to give people some incentive if they want them to keep using their apps."
You can find the full report here.